Specify exactly which fact you consider invalid, and I should be able to find a link to where I addressed it. Are you refering to the fact that knowledge cannot be contingent upon justification? If you disagree, you can stop hiding behind cheap links to cheap sites, and simply state why YOU disagree. Instead of "It's wrong because this website said so."
Isn't being an Atheist a religion?
- Thread starter iHaveNoIdea
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:wallbang:
Give it a rest, lixluke.
Please, for the sake of everyone else's sanity.
Flaws in your claims, in your "rules of knowledge" have been pointed out to you again and again and again, and you ignore them in favour of strawmen you create.
So please, just give it a rest.
Give it a rest, lixluke.
Please, for the sake of everyone else's sanity.
Flaws in your claims, in your "rules of knowledge" have been pointed out to you again and again and again, and you ignore them in favour of strawmen you create.
So please, just give it a rest.
Just because you say something is a strawman doesn't mean it's a strawman. If you respond to something you consider strawman, you have to point out how it's a strawman. Consider a statement you yourself made (paraphrase):
"Subject believes X is true, but has not determined if X is true."
That statement is impossible. In order for a subject to arrive at a conclusion, there MUST be some justification that compelled the subject to the conclusion. There is no such thing as a subject possessing a belief without a justification. If you disagree, you cannot simply state "strawman" without actually refuting it.
Did you believe in Santa Claus ?
People should use justification for their beliefs, but a belief does not require it. People believe all sorts of nonsensical crap.
That statement is possible and occurs all the time. People create hypothesis about things and later through additonal research and testing either confirm it to be true or false. In other words. Realize they were mistaken.
If you pressed a child on why they believed in Santa Claus they would probably say because Daddy or Mommy told them or because presents showed up under the tree.
And if they cannot come up with this answer, there is nevertheless something like this that justifies their answer.
Yes. I know. In the technical sense of most intellectuals this is not considered adequate justification.
Which Lixluke is aware of.
People keep taking LLs approach as saying all justification processes are as good as each other. That is not my take, at all, on what he is saying.
You make an assertion above that beliefs do not require justification. This is a strange mixtures of terms. In fact I would call it equivocation on the term justification. Of course every belief has a justification. Ask anyone why they believe something and they will, almost all the time, come up with reasons. Their reasons will not be considered adequate justification by scientists or intellectuals, for the most part, but that is a separate issue.
I see this repeatedly in the discussion with LL, where you tell him he is wrong because he is using a word incorrectly, so he must be wrong. But he is consciously choosing to open up the breadth of a couple of terms. This is, in fact, part of his position.
As far as people believe in nonsensical crap. People have believed in nonsensical crap AND met JTB criteria.
A process that can occur in LLs approach also. It is based on TB not simply B.
As a general note...
You guys keep asking Lixluke to stop, as if he had control of you. You and Sarkus need to take responsibility for your own actions.
I got irritated at LL earlier and I put him on ignore. Which is something you can all do. You are not guarding the gates of Rome from barbarian hoards.
Later I got curious and read his posts and saw that people were not getting his position and continuously attacked his position for implications and assertions that were not present. I think this is to some degree understandable. I see communication on both sides has been problematic.
If you find nothing useful in the argument with him, why not drop it?
What you're doing is misinterpreting the word "belief". Belief means that the subject is claiming to know for a fact that X is true.
I think the mistake is that he is misinterpreting "belief". He is appraching the term "belief" as inconclusion. Not as a conclusive claim of knowledge.
Doreen,
I was referring to this part, he says that this
from Sarkus is impossible.
here from lix
I wasn't referring to justification or reasons at all. Just that the statement is not impossible as I said.
Did you believe in Santa Clause ?
IOW, you believe but haven't determined if it is true, in a sense proven.
He sees that as the person in their own mind seeing it as truth. In that sense of course they believe it, that goes without saying. But that is not an impossible statement as it could just as easily been understood as, outside of their own belief that it is true, they haven't confirmed it in anyway. How could one prove there is a god for example ? Yet, they believe in one.
I was referring to this part, he says that this
from Sarkus is impossible.
here from lix
I wasn't referring to justification or reasons at all. Just that the statement is not impossible as I said.
Did you believe in Santa Clause ?
IOW, you believe but haven't determined if it is true, in a sense proven.
He sees that as the person in their own mind seeing it as truth. In that sense of course they believe it, that goes without saying. But that is not an impossible statement as it could just as easily been understood as, outside of their own belief that it is true, they haven't confirmed it in anyway. How could one prove there is a god for example ? Yet, they believe in one.
Wrong. A belief is something that a person claims to know is true. It is IMPOSSIBLE to say that a subject determined that X is true, but hasn't determined whether or not X is true. It is IMPOSSIBLE to state that a subject, claiming that X is confirmed verified truth, has not verified/confirmed it.
The proper statement is: "Subject came to a conclusion/determination that X is true using a form of verification/confirmation that other than what I consider to be "verification".
What a subect uses as verification/confirmation/justification to determine the truth is at the descretion of the subject.
Thus, it is IMPOSSIBLE to make the statement: "Subject claims to know that X is true, but has not verified it."
As usual, NOTHING to explain your position. Typical, "I'm right, and you're incorrect because I said so."
Not exactly. I'm the only one providing explanations behind my assertions. All anybody else wants to do is claim what my explanations are invalid, insufficient etc. Without actually pointing out flaws or explaining anything. Then claim I don't provide explanations.lol
Well, at least you understand mocking irony.
Flaws have been pointed out to you numerous times.
You simply choose not to address them. Thus, all the strawmen accusations.
Funny how your explanations seem to be lucid to you, whilst being erroneous or incomplete or inconsistent to others, while the explanations of others go unseen by you...
It's not that. It's that I do address them. I address, clarify, and refute whenever necessary. Yet, simply responding with a 'strawman' accusation, some tantrum, or unspecified flaw doesn't get anybody anywhere. Not to mention using question ultimatums that cannot be answered according to the givens present. Hence, a legitimate debate thread including explanations on how a subject's state of belief can be is nothing other than a state of conclusive determination about a proposition.
...according to you.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
All we require to justify an assertion is evidence. Presents showing up under a tree is empirical evidence. Obviously it doesn't take much research to sneak around and find out where the presents really came from--for an adult. For a child it means waiting until next year and that's an eternity. As for "my parents told me," that is argument from authority and for a young child that is also perfectly acceptable evidence. We expect them to believe the things the adults they trust tell them, that's the whole principle behind schooling for the first few years.
So it is not unreasonable for a child to believe in Santa Claus. What is unreasonable is for the adults he trusts to convince him to believe so. Whether adults have an obligation to teach children to think reasonably when they are very young... now that is a different question. And it certainly bears upon the topic of this thread since most children grow up believing in gods because when they were very young their parents told them gods exist, and no one they trusted ever told them the truth.
The same standards apply to adults. We do not expect everyone to perform primary or even secondary research. Believing something that was told to them by someone they trust is acceptable. As an adult we are capable of assessing the trustworthiness of people in specific disciplines.
But we're scientists here and "fact" doesn't mean the same thing in science that it does in vernacular speech. Nothing can be proven absolutely true in science; that only happens in mathematics, whose theories are based entirely on abstractions and require no evidence from the physical universe. To use the language of the law (because it communicates with laymen far more clearly than the language of science), what scientists colloquially but improperly call "facts" have only been proven "true beyond a reasonable doubt."
What I was implying was that a subject (observer) is either in a state of inconclusion or conclusion on a proposition (object).
STATE 1: A subject in the state of inconclusion does not claim knowledge about whether or not a proposition is true. Thus, he will not state that he knows X is true (or false). He may say something like "I don't know." or "I have no clue." or "I'm not quite sure."
Justification is anything that compels a subject beyond a particular threshold of certainty from inconclusion to conclusion. Perhaps he used the scientific method. Perhaps he used his 5 senses. Perhaps the devil told him in a dream. Perhaps he was trying to put up a clock, slipped on a toilet, and hit his head on a sink.
STATE 2: Whatever the justification, when compelled past a threshold of certainty, the subject is at a level of certainty in which he states that X is definitely true (or false). At this point he is in a state of conclusion. Perhaps the subject's conclusion is correct. Perhaps it is incorrect. He might say "I know that Earth is flat." or "I know that Earth is not flat."
The point that I was making was that in order for a subject to be in a state of belief, the subject must be in a state of conclusion. Thus, State 1 cannot be a state of belief. State 2 is a state of belief (whether the belief is correct or not).
State of conclusion = State of belief.
Belief that corresponds to actuality (correct belief) = Belief that is knowledge.
Belief that doesn't correspond to actuality (incorrect belief) = Belief that is misconception.
Linguistically, a subject may make the statement "I believe X is true." This typically means that the subject has not gone beyond threshold of certainty, and is in a state of inconclusion. Though the subject makes the statement, "I believe", he is not actually in the state of belief.
Linguistically, a subject may make the statement "I know X is true." This means that the subject has gone beyond threshold of certainty, and is in a state of conclusion. Though the subject makes the statement "I know", the subject is in the state of belief (whether his belief is knowledge or misconception).
What I was explaining was that it is IMPOSSIBLE for a subject in the state of inconclusion regarding a proposition to be in a state of belief about the proposition. In order for a subject to be in a state of belief, the subject MUST be in a state of conclusion. Over my entire life, I have yet to see any legitimate point that shows this as remotely incorrect. Not to mention, anybody approaching any matter as if a 'belief' can be inconclusion is setting themselves up for logical traps.
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You'll have to be more specific than that. There are indeed some religious beliefs that are in direct conflict with science, but belief in God, by itself, is not one of them.
If you have no definitions or descriptions of God, then yes, that's true, but it also makes the proposition rather vague.