Theists: should belief scale with the evidence?

[_MrStakhanovite]

No, history, US religion, women and gender. (So my overall knowledge of philosophy is pretty spotty.) In grad school after the '90's there was no escaping it. What we read of history is text, ie, literature. Women and gender studies draw heavily on them too.

Gotcha, you’re more familiar with the Continental side of Philosophy than the Analytical side it seems, and that probably explains the confusion.

Well, that's who I've read about. Sounds like I should start with Berkeley.

It’s not needed, not that studying Berkeley couldn’t be fruitful, but he is just a historical example of a hardcore empiricist that I think provides a decent counter-example to the OP.

I'd like to know how any of the three you named (or anyone else) deal more or less convincingly with the "are our senses preceiving reality" issue. Its a tough nut.

Sure, let me give you a quick rundown at what I think is at stake here and see what your interested in.

In the study of epistemology in Anglophone philosophy (sometimes called ‘analytic philosophy’), the standard view of what knowledge is Justified True Belief plus a few other disputed components not needed here. To know a proposition, you actually have to believe it, the proposition has to be true, and you need justification for that belief (otherwise having knowledge is a matter of luck).

If we focus in on just Justification, we ask questions about what kind of reasons, evidence, situations, and conditions need to be met before a belief is justified. When people come out of organized religions, the first thing they often try to do is build an epistemology off of the scientific method and juxtapose that with religion. So people will post about how beliefs needing evidence, go on about falsification, predictions, and all that other good stuff they learn about while reading the “Evolution VS Creationism” literature that is out there.

Now all that stuff is cool, but it gets you in to trouble if you try to build it up into something it is not. So you get into a discussion about epistemology and why there is no God, and the clever theist follows the thread of evidence back to some kind of important foundational belief that is really hard to produce evidence for (e.g. external reality)

At this point, this is when the ex-mormons around here flip their crap, because they mistake the intent of this exercise. What they see is someone using radical skepticism to attack something that seems to be common sense (there is an external reality) which holds up the natural sciences (which produce excellent results) so they can believe some bat crap crazy idea*.

The real intent is, to show that really important beliefs can’t always have good evidence for them, so we have to add some kind of other principle into the mix of Justification to get around this.

One way to get around this is to do what Chris Smith suggested earlier when he mentioned first principles. Axioms, brute facts, Moorean facts, basic beliefs, or what ever you want to call them, if you can trace evidence for a belief back to basic belief, it is considered justified

So the next stage of the conversation is going to be, what makes a basic belief or first principle self justifying? Or if we simply assume it so we can get on with other things, why can’t the theist simply assume God? Why does external reality get to be a brute fact that doesn’t need strong evidence, but God carries a bigger evidential burden?

I’ll stop there so this wall of text post doesn’t grow, but I hope this makes things clearer.





* Plenty of people out there do this, and Mormon apologists have made ample use of that strategy. Simon Belmont is a legendary but now defunct poster here who played this card to it’s absurd and borderline intellectually dishonest extremes.

[_Corpsegrinder]

The real intent is, to show that really important beliefs can’t always have good evidence for them…

My feelings exactly. “Some things are impossible to know” is a perfectly acceptable answer, in the absence of reliable information.

Why does external reality get to be a brute fact that doesn’t need strong evidence, but God carries a bigger evidential burden?

Good grief, don’t stop there.

I would very much like to know why “external reality” gets to be a “brute fact” because, as I see it, a brain inside a skull is the functional equivalent of a brain floating in a vat. Whether in a skull or a vat, a brain can only perceive the outside world via external sensors. So how do I know the Matrix hasn’t hacked into the sensory data streaming into my brain?

[Guest]

The real intent is, to show that really important beliefs can’t always have good evidence for them…

My feelings exactly. “Some things are impossible to know” is a perfectly acceptable answer, in the absence of reliable information.

"Impossible to know" when you should act or have to act? What criteria will you use to choose? Flip a coin? What choice will you actually make? Is that the moral choice? Why?

Do you vote for or against Prop 8 or just stay home when you don't have reliable information whether there is a God let alone what He/She wants you to do on that issue?

Why does external reality get to be a brute fact that doesn’t need strong evidence, but God carries a bigger evidential burden?

Good grief, don’t stop there. I would very much like to know why “external reality” gets to be a “brute fact” . . .

I'd would very much like to know why I should accept less proof for God than I do for whether or not I should order the McDonald's sausage, egg and cheese on a bisquit. I'm told that the wrong McDonald's choice might shorten my already finite life. There's a fair amount of evidence for that although it is not absolutely conclusive.

If I make the wrong religious choice it will affect me for "all eternity." I want more proof for the 2nd issue, not less.

Edited while Corpsegrinder was replying.

[_Corpsegrinder]

When you should act or have to act. What criteria will you use to choose? What choice will you actually make? Is that the moral choice? Why?

I’d really like to be able to answer this without resorting to “Some things are impossible to know” but I can’t, at least not without a few more specifics. I will say, however, that storylines wherein a protagonist is forced, against his will, to choose among several unsatisfactory and morally ambiguous options are among my favorites.

Do you vote for or against Prop 8 or just stay home when you don't have reliable information whether there is a God let alone what He/She wants you to do on that issue?

I would vote in favor of marriage rights for GLTBs, not because it’s what God wants me to do, but rather because it’s what I want to do.

[_lulu]

Axiom – taken as true but unprovable in the system under consideration. That’s a problem but could be just about every beginning premise ever (our senses perceive external reality, for example).

Brute fact – the most fundamental of facts, does not rest on any subsidiary fact(s). External reality is going to be a brute fact? I thought it was going to be a basic belief, we assume it just to get on with it.

Moorean fact – This is a hand, this is another hand. I think I like this cut crap guy, rape is real-get it? and yet . . . and yet . . . isn’t he begging the question? P is not true. Q implies P. Therefore, Q is not true. How do I know P is not true? Is it one of those form problems? The form is beautiful, it’s the unprovability of a premise, in this case the 2nd one, that gets in the way.

Basic belief – a self-justified axiom? I need to do more work on distinguishing axiom, brute fact and basic belief. But maybe that will be clear with “self justifying.” The “self” part scares me, sounds circular.

When we get to Hume, please drop his name in, it will be a signpost for me.

Who is Buffalo drawing on with “consistent, rational, predictable, reasonable and actionable?” Buffalo you still there? Droopy, ldsfaq and bcspace are in church, we can talk now. At least until they get back.

Thanks for giving me some handles, Stak.

When I clear up the definitions, I think I will be ready of some “justification.”

Can’t wait to see a Stak-Blixa smack down, just for the sport of it. What’s the Las Vegas line on it?

[_Corpsegrinder]

I'd would very much like to know why I should accept less proof for God than I do for whether or not I should order the McDonald's sausage, egg and cheese on a bisquit. I'm told that the wrong McDonald's choice might shorten my already finite life. There's a fair amount of evidence for that although it is not absolutely conclusive.

That’s the kind of question which, when taken to extremes, can lead to intellectual paralysis. But it’s always better to do something rather than nothing, even if it’s the wrong thing--or at least that’s what they say in the military. In other words, go ahead and eat the McD’s sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit. (Remember the fable that ends with “Eat the strawberries”?)

You’ll still be okay if you get plenty of exercise and eat some good food later on to balance out the crap.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Axiom – taken as true but unprovable in the system under consideration. That’s a problem but could be just about every beginning premise ever (our senses perceive external reality, for example).

Well, with a strict understanding of axiom from classical logic, axioms are not just improvable, they are universally true. If my opinion, there is simply no possible world where “A =A” (A is identical to A) or “ if you have A & B then you have A” are false.

I’m not even sure what it means for a global skeptic to deny that “A=A” could be false, since the skeptic would be using a language that assumed those kind of things to express that doubt. Incidentally, Kant takes a similar track in the first part of Critique of Pure Reason.

His argument basically goes like this; Human thinking is based on certain ‘categories’ (like A=A) that are essential to thinking humans. If we use categories, there are built in assumptions about the distinction between appearance and reality. If there is a distinction to be made about how things appear and how things are, then you are committed to some kind of objective reality.

It’s the same thing as many horrible conversations I’ve had with kids at the local university here. Young n eager freshmen tells me (or CaliforniaKid on Facebook!) that they can’t be certain of anything, the immediate and appropriate response is to ask them if they are certain of that.

Sorry about the lengthy digress here, but I thought it a fitting starting point, you can be sure that there is some kind of objective reality and there are truths about this reality that can be known (at least in principle).

Now one can construe axioms to mean propositions beyond the strictly logical that one assumes to be true, like Descartes “I think so I am” concept. How to defend these will lead us to…

Moorean fact – This is a hand, this is another hand. I think I like this cut crap guy, rape is real-get it? and yet . . . and yet . . . isn’t he begging the question? P is not true. Q implies P. Therefore, Q is not true. How do I know P is not true? Is it one of those form problems? The form is beautiful, it’s the unprovability of a premise, in this case the 2nd one, that gets in the way.

The G.E. Moore shift is a good strategy, if you think the denial of the conclusion is more probable than the conjunction of premises, then you can flip the modus ponens around and do a modus tollens. A helpful skill to learn is how to make truth tables, it might be helpful to google around for some tutorials so you can understand just how modus ponens and modus tollens are deductively valid and can even show other people with just a pencil and a scrap of paper.

I can also put it another way more formally:

(P1) Simon Belmont’s assumptions imply that propositions like “I know this is a chair” are false.

(P2) If proposition A is more certain than proposition B, B cannot falsify A.

(P3) “I know this is a chair” is more certain than than any of Simon Belmont’s stupid assumptions.

(C1) Simon Belmont’s assumptions cannot falsify that “I know this is a chair” (Modus Ponens from P1 and P2)


So far, we have two different and compatible strategies that can be used not to defeat skepticism, but undercut it enough to show that at least some of our common sense views are not threatened by it.

Are you with me so far? If so, I’ll move on to Brute Fact.

[_Corpsegrinder]

Are you with me so far? If so, I’ll move on to Brute Fact.

I believe I am. Proceed at your convenience.

[_CaliforniaKid]

It’s the same thing as many horrible conversations I’ve had with kids at the local university here. Young n eager freshmen tells me (or CaliforniaKid on Facebook!) that they can’t be certain of anything, the immediate and appropriate response is to ask them if they are certain of that.

And the immediate and appropriate response to that is no.

[_lulu]

Let's try brute facts.

Deductive logic is the only philosophy class I've ever had. Yes, it had been invented by then. I remember truth trees. Symbolic logic reminds me of algebra, ugg. But hey, algebra is symbolic logic. I'll practice some P1 P2's.

Hit me you brute.