Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Stuff that's hard to believe

It's easy to believe that

  1. the sky is blue.
But it's hard to believe that
  1. (the sky is blue or the sky is blue) or (the sky is blue or the sky is blue).
In fact, it's so hard that I have no idea how to go about believing it.

It's easy to believe that

  1. I have two hands.
But to believe that
  1. possibly I have two hands,
I have to be able to think modal thoughts, and that's a lot harder.

The point is clear: ease of belief is not the same thing as credibility.

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2 comments:

  1. SMatthewStolteFebruary 21, 2014 at 7:18 AM

    Do I need to have the thought that p in order to believe that p?

    Sometimes, a friend will ask me a question like, “Do you believe that p?” and it will take me some time to figure out what p means. But when I finally do understand it, I feel like I can legitimately say something like, “Yes, now that I understand the meaning of p, I can say that I have always believed that p, and I will continue to believe that p even as I go take a nap.”

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  2. Dagmara LizlovsFebruary 23, 2014 at 7:57 PM

    I find it easy to believe and hard to believe the following:

    1. God exists.
    2. He became a human.
    3. People were so freaked out by Him that they killed Him.
    4. He rose from the dead to live forever.
    5. We will die too, be raised from the dead in totally renewed bodies to live forever.

    Then there is this article in Patheos that sums things like this up quite well why believe in a religion that is absolutely crazy. At once rational and irrational. At once down to Earth and in somewhere out there - the Catholic faith:

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2014/02/catholic-enemies-make-strange-bedfellows.html

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