/lit/ - Literature

So proceeding, we see, first, that religion offers itself as a momentous option. We are supposed to gain, even now, by our belief, and to lose by our non-belief, a certain vital good. Secondly, religion is a forced option, so far as that good goes. We cannot escape the issue by remaining sceptical and waiting for more light, because, although we do avoid error in that way if religion be untrue, we lose the good, if it be true, just as certainly as if we positively chose to disbelieve. It is as if a man should hesitate indefinitely to ask a certain woman to marry him because he was not perfectly sure that she would prove an angel after he brought her home. Would he not cut himself off from that particular angel-possibility as decisively as if he went and married some one else? Scepticism, then, is not avoidance of option; it is option of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error,—that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field. To preach scepticism to us as a duty until
'sufficient evidence' for religion be found, is tantamount therefore to telling us, when in presence of the religious hypothesis, that to yield to our fear of its being error is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true. It is not intellect against all passions, then; it is only intellect with one passion laying down its law. And by what, forsooth, is the supreme wisdom of this passion warranted? Dupery for dupery, what proof is there that dupery through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear? I, for one, can see no proof; and I simply refuse obedience to the scientist's command to imitate his kind of option, in a case where my own stake is important enough to give me the right to choose my own form of risk. If religion be true and the evidence for it be still insufficient, I do not wish, by putting your extinguisher upon my nature (which feels to me as if it had after all some business in this matter), to forfeit my sole chance in life of getting upon the winning side,—that chance depending, of course, on my willingness to run the risk of acting as if my passional need of taking the world religiously might be prophetic and right.

>>14902342
All this is on the supposition that it really may be prophetic and right, and that, even to us who are discussing the matter, religion is a live hypothesis which may be true. Now, to most of us religion comes in a still further way that makes a veto on our active faith even more illogical. The more perfect and more eternal aspect of the universe is represented in our religions as having personal form. The universe is no longer a mere It to us, but a Thou, if we are religious; and any relation that may be possible from person to person might be possible
{28}
here. For instance, although in one sense we are passive portions of the universe, in another we show a curious autonomy, as if we were small active centres on our own account. We feel, too, as if the appeal of religion to us were made to our own active good-will, as if evidence might be forever withheld from us unless we met the hypothesis half-way. To take a trivial illustration: just as a man who in a company of gentlemen made no advances, asked a warrant for every concession, and believed no one's word without proof, would cut himself off by such churlishness from all the social rewards that a more trusting spirit would earn,—so here, one who should shut himself up in snarling logicality and try to make the gods extort his recognition willy-nilly, or not get it at all, might cut himself off forever from his only opportunity of making the gods' acquaintance. This feeling, forced on us we know not whence, that by obstinately believing that there are gods (although not to do so would be so easy both for our logic and our life) we are doing the universe the deepest service we can, seems part of the living essence of the religious hypothesis. If the hypothesis were true in all its parts, including this one, then pure intellectualism, with its veto on our making willing advances, would be an absurdity; and some participation of our sympathetic nature would be logically required. I, therefore, for one cannot see my way to accepting the agnostic rules for truth-seeking, or wilfully agree to keep my willing nature out of the game. I cannot do so for this plain reason, that a rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule. That for me
is the long and short of the formal logic of the situation, no matter what the kinds of truth might materially be.

>>14902335
This was a joy to read, my two cents.

Not everyone takes the truth literal, if I think the truth is symbolic or metaphorical, then I would end up thinking many concepts or ideas ultimately point to the same source.

In that sense, truth is something inherently non-ideological and non-dogmatic, poetry might contain it, but that usually is diverse in tone and content.

>>14902335
The only American philosopher.

>>14902335
>>14902342
>>14902351
Ah yes, I too prefer emotional whinging and appeals to unfalsifiable speculations rather than concrete, verified reports of reality derived from the logical rigors of the natural sciences.

>>14902591
Do you enjoy making ironic posts?

>>14902591
>I too prefer emotional whinging and appeals to unfalsifiable speculations rather than concrete, verified reports of reality derived from the logical rigors of the natural sciences
Ah yes, I too love to pretend my favourite language-game washed up on a beach somewhere and is self-evidently true to everyone, despite it being just one more historically contingent set of concepts belonging to a particular tradition of thought

>>14902591
not an argument

uh I thought there were a lot of atheists on this board? They talk a lot in other threads but not this one. Strange

bump

If there is a spiritual world and there are certain rules there then how could this affect a Believer and an atheist? Like Spirits dwell with like spirits. That is a basic rule I have found in the spiritual world. It is how God's Providence orders being while keeping us free. So whatever can Captivate you and whatever you believe is the truth are the kinds of General spirits that you will be around in the spiritual world. Of course this is a much more complicated picture as there is a kind of hierarchy of beings concerned with such and such thing. So for instance take the Bible as an example. At the bottom of the totem pole there are various evil spirits that utilize the Bible and capture people. But going further upwards you find more and more Angelic ideas reflected in the Bible. so we cannot get rid of our own subjectivity and we are always the first judge of Truth or being.

Please stop using James in such juvenile threads. His work deserves to be discussed with respect and decorum, not vulgar 'ATHEISTS DESTROYED' hooliganism.

>>14903817
It’s only for attention. No one responded in the last thread

>>14903830
Sure, you can get more attention by dressing like a slut, but you'll only lure guys interested in a pump-and-dump.

>>14902591
>he thinks we can prove God with modern day technology

>>14903817
shut the fuck up, r*dditor.

>>14903877
newfag

Why is his prose so much better than his brother's

>>14904146
depends on the subject

>>14902403
For James, truth is "what is better to belief" and the status of being true is an active one resulting from the belief functioning. More specifically, it is the word we put to a belief that is in a state of being validated by an experience. As he puts it; "Truth happens to a belief".
so >>14902335
the way in which a religion comes to be true, for James, is the sense in which a rock may come to be a cutting tool: by functioning.
It's more of a scientific principle that James is coming to us with. It's like the way an atomic model can function for giving us a sense of understanding of the atom such that we can continue observing it and interacting with it to results that are not hostile to our expectations. And yet, there are many things about any given atomic model that are misleading from other provided facts about the atom. That doesn't make it false, because it is still fulfilling it's function.

So Religion is not "true" in the special sense of truth which James' whole philosophy stands against, there are no such truths. Truths is the word for something functioning, and religion can function. I think his argument here is that it is less rational to react against religion than to assent to it, as is the case for any number of other things that are not necessarily "true" to everyone. To discard something as fundamentally false is to fall to the same delusion involved in declaring something as fundamentally true. So yes, James argues against "atheism" in the popular sense, but the result is more of an agnosticism (although his philosophy of accepting experience itself as the basic reality eludes that characterization as well, as there's no room to speak of real questions with a given true or false answer, so to say you can't take a position on whether or not God exists is to fall victim to the delusion aforementioned.)

>>14905381
better to believe*

>>14905381
>So Religion is not "true" in the special sense of truth which James' whole philosophy stands against, there are no such truths.
why are there no such truths?

>>14902591
>DUDE I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE

Please don't associate William "Philosophy Grandpa" James with this
>ATHEISM BTFO!!! CAN BUDDHISM EVEN RECOVER????? EPIC HARD MODE: YOU CAN'T
nonsense.

>>14902335
lmao.

>>14905381
theism btfo

>>14902591
>Ah yes, I too prefer emotional whinging and appeals to unfalsifiable speculations rather than concrete, verified reports of reality derived from the logical rigors of the natural sciences.

>>14906757
Because, again, "truth" is nothing but the status of a belief functioning to expectation or satisfaction. He suggests that the very notions of space and time could be nothing more than hypotheses that have persisted for so long in human history that we take them for granted.
You don't have to go that far and I don't know if I agree with him on that point, but it puts the matter in perspective.

bump

>>14906844
he literally wrote about it

>>14907878
yeah this reality and the very notions which constitute it have persisted for so long in human history that we just take them for granted because of a belief functioning to expectation or satisfaction