Belief in the unproven

When is it, if ever, reasonable to believe in something that is not proven?

 

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When there is valid evidence to do so. Or if circumstances are so desperate or deadly that taking a gamble with incomplete evidence is justified.

 

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Speaking personally from the experience of being enlightened a few times, don't try to know it.

 

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When it's fun and it costs you nothing. When you watch a science fiction movie you have to suspend disbelief or you won't enjoy it.

Long ago I had a lady friend who wanted to be with me intimately. She said that we were lovers in a past life time. I went along with it because I liked her.

When it brings you peace of mind and joy; when not believing in it brings you unhappiness.

 

When someone you love is dying, and you are lost in despair...perhaps then, it would seem reasonable to believe in an unfathomable god, bringing about a miracle.

 

I'm certain we are not alone in the Universe. I'm certain plenty of primordial primitive bacterial life exists, and to a much lesser extent, this has evolved into what we could call intelligent beings.
The sheer weight of numbers, the near infinite extent of the Universe, and the stuff of life being everywhere we look, leads me to that belief.

The mainstream science belief is simply 'WE DO NOT KNOW"

 

Nope, still not reasonable.

 

When the thought police are not around.

 

I suppose the atheist thought police want to show up at hospitals now and tear down the Christian symbols that ease pain to the suffering. Typical.

 

They can do what they want, but I'm just saying it's not reasonable.

The thought police is actually Christianity. Jesus said it's not just bad when you do something bad, but even when you think about it.

 

Did you really believe it, or did you just go along with it?

 

She believed it. I wanted to allow her to believe in something that made her happy.

 

Sometimes reasonableness is not as important as happiness.

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When is it reasonable to believe in the unproven?
When you might get laid.

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Does not most or all science start this way. I believe we can land a man on mars, does that make me a gullible moron?

Name one scientific discovery that someone did not believe before it was proven. I am sure there are many, but name one.

 

Proven how? Literally, with logical or mathematical proofs? Few (if any) of our beliefs rise to that standard.

In real life, things seem to be a lot looser than that. When we believe in things, we don't typically mean that what we believe must be true with logical necessity. Most of the things that we believe are just things that we find plausible, more like working assumptions. They are still defeasible by future experience. It's almost certain that we will discover that some of the things that we currently believe are actually wrong.

 

The whole ad hominem arsenal of words like stupid, moron, idiot, etc., is losing its power. We can believe whatever we want to believe, whatever we can believe. The thought police have no power over us.

 

Thought police? LOL.

Yes, you can believe whatever absurd nonsense you want to believe, but you should expect at the very least others will certainly view that nonsense as stupid, moronic and idiotic.

 

Given the reasonable belief and the happier belief, can people really decide for the happier belief? I'd find that hard to do. I'd always know I was just believing to make myself happy. And thus I would always have doubts.

 

What do you mean by "believe in..."?
If you mean merely to take as possibly/hopefully true, then we all do it every time with any action where the outcome is unknown until it happens... e.g. crossing a road: it's not proven that it is/was safe, but we believe we can cross it safely, because we have confidence in the experience that we have developed in doing so, and apply a risk/reward benefit to specific scenarios.

If you mean to believe without evidence at all, that is a different matter.
And if you mean to believe as true without possibility of it being false: I would say that it always unreasonable to do so (in absence of proof).