That is the argument. There is no sufficient evidence to be found to the best of my knowledge, and you aren't providing any, so it wouldn't be reasonable for me to reach any other conclusion, would it?

All I need to do is point to the absence of sufficient evidence for both positions and point out that you're not forthcoming with any evidence to distinguish the two positions on an epistemological level. I hereby point that out.

It is up to you to support any supposed difference in epistemological level. I can't do that for you. Either I'm right or I'm ignorant, but you have done nothing which could possibly change my assessment by simply pointing to my burden of proof. The burden of proof can be avoided, as you well know. You avoid it all the time. I can avoid it by retracting my claim for scepticism, which means I have nothing to defend, but you have a questionable faith which seems no different in epistemological terms to faith in a space teapot.

The topic relates to intellectual honesty, as the creator of the discussion has noted. You're intellectually honest enough to be explicit about your theism being based on faith. Are you intellectually honest enough to be explicit about the logical consequences of this? That your faith in God is on the same epistemological level as faith in Teapot and on the same epistemological level as guesswork that flying indetectable giraffes are all around us?

You might have noticed that I was careful with my wording. I didn't say that faith is guesswork, I said that it is on par with it. Good luck trying to argue otherwise. Your faith in God is on par with faith in Teapot or guesswork that flying invisible giraffe. That which is on par with guesswork is very much in contrast to reason. They're mutually exclusive.

I know that there is at least one respondent here who is a theist. The question is, is he willing to admit that his belief is on par with guesswork?

And to any strong atheist, what supposed evidence is there that there is no God, and why is it supposedly sufficient support of your conclusion?

Damn. That explains so much.

Indeed. Both theists and strong atheists who try to be reasonable think that there is sufficient evidence in support of their respective claims, whilst weak atheists, agnostics, or whatever we call them, disagree with both. And those who don't try to be reasonable should keep quiet about it here, as that's contrary to doing philosophy, and doing philosophy is what we're supposed to be doing here.

Yep. I'm in another concurrent discussion in the philosophy of religion section where someone has just accused my position of being "just faith", even though anyone here who pays any attention to my posting history, and who is not biased against me, can see that I am about as far from that mindset as possible.

If I was going to go by faith, or just faith, then I would go with something more creative: I have faith that the world is a giant floppy green giraffe called "Philip", and we are all fleas on the giraffe who dream of being humans on a planet called "Earth".

It is both true and trivial that there is faith in a sense besides religious faith.

Okay, I take back what I said. You have begun to criticise my kind of atheism. You have begun to do so fallaciously. Your claim that my kind of atheism is "just faith" is not only unwarranted, but ludicrous.

Your suggestion that reason is unqualified for the task at hand is self-defeating through performative contradiction. You rely on reason to reach the same conclusion that I do. The possible alternatives, though obviously possible, are unwarranted through reason, and should therefore be rejected if we're going to be reasonable, and you've already said that you don't expect either of us to abandon reason, so you're just attention seeking, it seems.

What's so absurd about your rhetoric, is that behind it all, I have reached the same conclusions that you have, and we've both done this through reason. You are shooting yourself in the foot with your own rhetoric, and in your superior wisdom, you don't even realise this.

Is it that you see the word "atheist" and you become like a wild bull who has seen red? That's what I suspect. A bit like "nuclear weapons". It's just a word. We don't even have to call it that. You don't have to get so triggered at the mere mention of it. Calm down, dear. You're not being reasonable when you get yourself all worked up and start spouting nonsense.

You are a good comedian, though inadvertently. You haven't even begun to criticise my kind of atheism, you just sent us on a diversion about reason which hasn't achieved what you appear to so desperately want it to.

Your whole "argument" amounts to little more than fallacy. The fallacy of ad hominem, the fallacy of guilt by association, the fallacy of false equivalence. "You're an ideologue! You're like a 23 year old! You're just as fanatical as them!". If this is the "wisdom" which comes with old age, I do not want it. You can keep it. Thanks, but no thanks.

My kind of atheism is the kind which has rejected theism and strong atheism, not as impossible, but as unwarranted, and unwarranted due to insufficient evidence in support of them. We've been over this in detail before, as you well know, so your denialism is not excused. You don't actually seem to substantially disagree, you just want to grind your axe like your nuclear weapons thing. Ironically, it seems you're an ideologue.

What are you talking about? I'm not merely repeating your point, I'm pointing out that, contrary to your own words, "nothing resolved", it shows that the philosophical problem has been largely resolved, if not completely. That's what resolving philosophical problems consists in: applying reason, logical analysis, making an assessment, reaching a conclusion, rejecting possible alternatives as unwarranted...

Your accusations of me confusing reason and ideology ring hollow. I put it down to your psych. For some reason, your psych is compelling you to fabricate this mischaracterisation, even though it isn't supported by a shred of reason.

You're heavily undermining your own point. How can you say that nothing has been resolved, when by applying reason, we can discover that we're too ignorant to reasonably conclude either theism or strong atheism? And if you want to abandon reason here, then go for it if you even can. Go ahead and see if you can believe in space teapots and God and no God and a flying magical giraffe called Terrance. That's a prominent philosophical problem largely resolved. Plenty of others are still stuck at an earlier stage or have reached the wrong conclusion.

Are you familiar with Hume? I agree with his point about the laws of nature, for example. It is possible that tomorrow when I wake up - if I wake up - and turn on the tap - if it is still there - that the water - if any is produced - will unexpectedly float upwards. Yes, what we tend to think or believe is conditional on a million other things. So what? Does that make any real difference? No. Should I abandon reason? No.

You are nowhere near my level. You are still foolish enough to jump to conclusions about age or the length of time that one has been doing philosophy, and you still think that you're making a profound point about reason, when others have long since accepted similar criticisms and sensibly moved forward, leaving you and your superiority complex in the dust.

If reason doesn't help in matters like this, then why not believe anything that you want? Why is it that you use reason as I do, and you've even reached very similar conclusions to me? You are in denial, young Jake. Perhaps you'll grow out of that one day.

You do realise that that post is an example of using reason to reach a similar conclusion to me? Yes, we're ignorant to the extent that we don't know whether what the (noncontradictory) theist believes is true or whether what the strong atheist believes is true. We're basically doing the same thing here, only I'm not in denial about it.

You seem to have a superiority complex. Of all people, I know a thing or two about that. It is the height of foolishness to expect me to attempt to defend reason. How can I defend reason, except with reason or unreason? Either route is unreasonable. I can only point to the performative contradiction that those who rail against reason nevertheless rely on it a great deal. You won't get far in philosophy through abandoning reason.

"Anyone who denies the law of noncontradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned" - Avicenna.

It was obviously a judgement relating to the intellect, rather than to morality, even if I allowed my emotions to cloud my judgement, as you suggest. Why should I have to defend the obvious? Clearly, given my wording, I wasn't judging him to be immoral. I made a judgement about bias and about mindlessness, and obviously the latter wasn't intended to be taken literally, which would be a silly way to interpret it.

If you want to know what I think about the role that reason has to play, then you should review what I've said already about that, rather than expecting me to repeat myself. I stand by my objection that I didn't claim, as you said, that reason has nothing to do with morality. The irony of your moving the goalposts, in spite of accusing me of doing that, has not been lost on me. Nor has your projection about insults, bombastic bluster, bare assertions and the like.

And your challenge is to actually lift a finger and attempt to show that, rather than merely say so.

That's not always the case though, which was my point. And it might actually be worse to purposefully refrain from sharing your convinction as a debate tactic. What we'll find is that the theists on here will either refrain from sharing, or, like you say, they won't be clear about it being speculation or guesswork or unreasonable. That "pre-apprehension" stuff from earlier, for example, was sheer speculation, not philosophy proper. And if I indicate that criticism through sarcastically saying, "yeah, and maybe pigs can fly", I have found that some people here will fail to see the significance of that criticism and tell you to go away to Facebook.

Strong atheists are guilty of doing at least some of this also.

Yes, it falls on both, I agree. What I find annoying is when a theist thinks that they can just wade into a discussion like this and start attacking strong atheists when they're just as bad if not worse. The only trick that the theist might exploit here is to withhold any assertion representative of their belief in order to protect it. That is intellectually dishonest. They don't want to face up to intellectual scrutiny, but they're more than happy to jump right in to scrutinising strong atheism, whilst conveniently setting aside the much more defendable types of atheism or agnosticism or whatever you want to call it.

I agree with you on the significance of that distinction.

It is a shame when people respond with a type of ad hominem (a circumstantial ad hominem in this case) rather than a response which actually attempts a justification. I had it from Jake in a different discussion in the philosophy of religion section. The challenge is to reasonably support your claim that you've had an experience of God, rather than of anything else which you take to be of God. That isn't about whether or not I'll be convinced by it. Can you do that or not? I didn't even set any more specific restrictions relating to science or anything else. Just go ahead and give it your best shot for whatever you sincerely judge to be reasonable, if you can.

My point about speaking properly wasn't about how articulate you are, it was about wording things in the right logical way, a way which avoids problematic logical consequences. My wording resolves philosophical problems. Your wording exacerbates them.

I'm old enough to know my arse from my elbow, and that's all you need to know, Sonny Jim.

No wonder you're so confused. The allegation of bias and of mindlessness was not a moral judgement, it was an intellectual judgement. And I have very clearly said on multiple occasions that I don't think that morality has nothing to do with reason. What's worse is that you're not the only one to make that error. The problem is that it goes in one ear and right out the other.

It is widely known that the word "mere" carries a negative connotation. With Tim at least, that is but one article of potential evidence out of a whole catalogue of evidence upon which I've made my case that he is deliberately appealing to emotion through the exploitation of language. And also, when "mere" preference in moral matters is idiotically or deceptively compared with preferences relating to foodstuffs, then the fallacy is clear enough. It's right out of the sophist strategy manual: if you can't argue against a position properly, then try to make it superficially appear trivial.

Yes, you did very, very well. Have a giant pat on the back. Your prize is mindless praise from everyone who is biased against me. Enjoy. Drink it up. But be careful not to choke.

That's more like it. Time spent rightly criticising strong atheists is time better spent than time wasted attacking me for being perfectly reasonable, or trying and failing to guess my age, or telling me to go away to Facebook.

But that isn't the purpose of the analogy! I'm not even disputing what you're saying about space teapots and God, I'm disputing the logical relevance. My point has been from the beginning that there's a good analogy to get out of a space teapot and God in terms of the evidence, and in terms of the burden of proof. I don't give a fig about your bad analogy which misses the point. There is no reasonable basis to believe in either, which is very much the point. Saying so of God is like saying so of a space teapot. And that isn't to say that we know as much about teapots as we do about God, it is only to say that the evidence for a space teapot is about as severely lacking as it is for God, and that it is insufficient grounds for concluding in favour. And Russell's point with the teapot was about fallacious attempts to shift the burden of proof. The burden of proof is on the theist and the teapotist, not on me.

Psychology.

The moment that you present a reasonable basis for your experience being of God is the moment that I'll accept your claim that you had an experience of God, rather than an experience which you merely take to have been of God. And God, properly speaking, is not a thing of this world, from what I know of the world, because that name is supposed to have an actual referent, not a fictional or imaginary referent. And there is no actual referent, to the best of my knowledge. As with countless other problems in philosophy, this problem stems from someone not speaking properly, and in this case it is you. Throw out your Tao and replace it with philosophy of the linguistic turn.

Don't worry, I'll be the better person and refuse to resort to name calling. On second thought, fuck it, it turns out that you're a bigger fool than I ever could have imagined. But it was good while it lasted.

I'm glad we ended this on an amicable note. :up:

Oh look, more name calling. What a surprise. There is no universally agreed upon. Do you even know what that means? And your criticism of the thought experiment completely misses the point. You would probably struggle with the trolley problem, the pleasure machine, Mary's room, p-zombies, brain in a vat, and any other thought experiment at all that differs in any way from the popular or predominant view of reality.

Try cutting out the petty insults and irrelevant personal attacks! The history was relevant to the extent that my thought experiment isn't totally incomprehensible. It is relatable on some level. It is a possible world scenario. It resembles periods of our history, though it obviously doesn't replicate them exactly, which is neither necessary nor was ever my intention. You've predictably failed by either refusing to engage it or by adding elements to the thought experiment that aren't in the set up of it.

You're ridiculously blinkered to the "everyone else" bit. I have tried to resolve this problem. Please review what I've said. I often edit my posts too late, so things can be missed. I would apologise for that, but you're acting like a jerk, so an apology from me to you over anything at all is out of the question right now.

If you want a historical example of what I'm getting at, with plenty of evidence in support of it, read Hiter's Willing Executionors: Ordinary Germans And The Holocaust, by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen.

To disagree with what I just said of history only suggests your own ignorance of history. I know quite a bit about history. I am about as obsessed with history as I am with philosophy.

And if you aren't disagreeing with what I said, but instead with something I didn't say, then you're missing the point. I recommend reviewing what I actually said. The thought experiment resembles our history to a certain degree, I didn't intend to suggest that it replicates it exactly. It doesn't need to. It isn't totally incomprehensible. It is a possible world scenario. But if you are petty enough to object to the "everyone else" part, then just swap it for "most others in my society". In the thought experiment, I am white, and so is everyone else in my village. I've never even seen anyone of a different skin colour in person. My culture is very much racist. My parents are racist. But I am not.

You'll probably just try to cheat by altering the thought experiment, which results in failure. Or you'll refuse to even engage it, which results in failure.

Janus's position has a lot going for it, so long as we completely ignore our history of slavery, genocide, extreme torture, racism, and severe oppression - all of which were commonly accepted and intersubjectively true amongst large groups at one time. If you were one of the individuals who judged against the herd, then you were just a sociopath, and nothing special. You can be written off as irrelevant. Morality is herd-morality! Or so bleats the sheep.

You can't change the thought experiment. Don't you know how these things work? In the thought experiment, everyone else in my society is a racist. That isn't so unbelievable given our history.

You aren't properly responding, because you don't have a leg to stand on, and you've begun to resort to name-calling and evasion, which is tantamount to throwing in the towel.

How would that work out in my example, then? I want you to actually try to show us where your logic leads. I am a sociopath for judging racism to be wrong, and my judgement is nothing special? Is that what you're suggesting? If you say that they're wrong, then that can only suggest individual moral relativism or moral objectivism, both of which you reject. Seems lose-lose for you. I have you trapped.

And obviously my judgement didn't come from my racist society. So again, you're trapped.

And omfg, please stop with the mere food preference bullshit. You're better than that, or so I thought.

I am very much not missing the point. I am objecting to your deliberately misleading wording, and I will continue to do so. This has been a problem from the very start. Remember, "mere" preference? Remember, "destructive"? Well, guess what? "Nothing is wrong!" is on that same list. The last one should always be clearly qualified in a discussion such as this, where no one is a moral nihilist.

I strongly disagree here. It makes no sense to me not to be flexible enough to switch between a group context and an individual context. Wrong for them isn't necessarily wrong for me, and that clearly matters a lot, or wouldn't it matter if I was the only non-racist subject in a large group of subjects? Racism would be right, and my individual moral judgement irrelevant?

You said of something that it was "in the arguments of moral relativists". Who were you referring to? Two moral relativists here have rejected what you said.

And I'm most obviously arguing against anyone who is a moral objectivist or a moral absolutist, but it's not that simple. I also disagree with Terrapin over his noncognitivism, T Clark over cultural relativism, yourself and T Clark over individualism...

I'll argue with anyone who disagrees with me over anything.

Inter-subjectivity seems like a red herring.