dogman6126 said:
On the other hand, the rationality of religious belief is less restrictive! Religious belief per se isn't making a claim at knowledge, and so its rationality is not restricted by truth and more importantly proof. Religious belief may be justified by psychological need, and one may be rational for doing so even if the belief is not true because it isn't knowledge in this sense.
I like your explanation a lot. The ideal gas law example in particular.
I think the gist of my point is that there is such a thing which the eastern spiritual prophets suggest as "absolute" knowledge of God-consciousness, which they suggest a lot of the other organized religious methodologies which are less esoteric try to offer a more practical version of.....similar to how the gas laws may work as a practical model, while hiding a lot of what's going on beneath the surface.
This is why when it comes down to it a more "hardcore" scientific rationalist is dissatisfied with these organized religious methodologies -- because full consistency never was the aim, more like a projection of the insights of the most mystical prophets onto our practical world.
I think for the most hardcore skeptics though, there's no hope but to aim for the more absolute forms of knowledge rather than the more practical ones.
My knowledge is the religious prophets often say though that accepting the practical religious methodologies as absolute is a mistake, and that one should certainly (as with your ideal gas law example) know there's more behind there. Thus, many of them suggest that an extreme adherence to such laws is not advisable, and even suggest that it leads to superstition....and that even if they believe there's great things to come of God-knowledge, it is singularly better to be more of a scientific mind than to fall into superstition. They'd also argue that true "faith" only comes from God-knowledge in a more absolute sense, not through practical religion---parallel to us saying memorizing the laws you said were limited and of a more practical use isn't ultimately an enlightened view of science, even if it has its uses.
My general point is only the most fundamental God-knowledge is something one can it seems plausibly argue falls in the realm of faith--- an "irrational" factor. Whenever one speaks of how to live one's life practically, that falls in the overlap between what religion may offer suggestions on and what science and non-religious philosophy may suggest things about. My own personal bias is to go with science and non-religious philosophy for such things hands down, and leave religion for discovery of that irrational factor (irrational in Jung's sense, not in the sense of nonsense!)
. Why is the value or importance of a topic entirely dependent on its provability? If the only things you consider to be meaningful are those things that are absolutely undeniable, then you are reduced to only one thing that has meaning. The concept that you exist. All else can be denied, for even science requires assumptions that themselves cannot be proven. For example, there being an external world.
