Let philosophizing be understood here as the attempt to reason and think in an organized way about the thinking and reasoning about a determinate subject matter. This somewhat tortuous definition to distinguish philosophizing from the immediate reasoning and thinking about a particular subject matter that is usually called science. That is, science and philosophy - whatever their relationship may have been - have been for some time two different animals.

Hearsay - the word is actually pretty descriptive of what it is - is repeating something you have heard. Hearsay itself is not evidence. Citing good authority is not hearsay, because ultimately based in evidence.

What is evidence? That's not so simple. Tentatively, let evidence be understood here as arguments in the broadest sense of the term - again, not hearsay - that can themselves be verified, that support the conclusion or argument in question, and are stronger or at least as strong as that argument/conclusion. I'll accept refinement or adjustment. The idea, though, is that there is such a thing as evidence as defined here, or if not, then all is nonsense.

There appear to be two broad classes or types of arguments, those from the natural world, and those from the "world" of ideas, or mind. So-called hard science at one end of the spectrum, theology at the other. I am inclined to think that morality, mathematics, and logic find their respective bases in the natural world. And some topics may mix, but in those cases resolvable into their evidential and speculative parts.

At the theology end of the spectrum, there appears to be zero evidence. It's all hearsay. The only way to philosophize, then, about theology, is to consider it, and all determinate subjects that have no evidential base, as ideas and speculation about ideas. And the only way to ground any such discussion is as a hypothetical. That is, if such-and-such be the case, then the consequences that follow are these-and-those. But such an argument itself never escapes the hypothetical, unless and until it be given an evidential base. And there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such philosophizing on such speculative topics.

What is a terrible and destructive mistake, however, is to suppose that a speculative philosophizing based on hearsay somehow comes to be considered or claimed to be evidential in discussion. The least of the mistake is that those making the mistake not only do not know what they are talking about - or even thinking - but that the mistake cuts thinking off from language and concepts that could indeed be evidentially based. For example, an insistence on the supernatural cuts off at the knees any consideration of an alternative natural account.

The idea here is that this mistake is repeated again, and again, and again here. The mistake is destructive of sense and reason.

A solution arises out of consideration of the characteristics of the argument. If it's evidential, then subject to criticism on its grounds and in its reason. Perhaps, that is, the facts are wrong or the argument is wrong. But it's also subject to verification.

A speculative argument based in hearsay on the other hand can never be wrong because it is based on hearsay in a hypothetical. All most of us can do, then, is ask for evidence. The failure to respond to requests for evidence or provide good evidence, in my opinion, identifies the argument as non-evidential. Whether any such argument or discussion has any merit at all, is entirely a subjective determination, for, not being evidential, it can have no substance. As such, it may be more-or-less or complete nonsense, and subject to moderation. Those who want to play in such a discussion free to do so. Those with little stomach for nonsense can stay out. And moderation can appropriately dispose of matters too nonsensical.