Well, if you think that's the case, then you don't know the arguments, I'm afraid.surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2019 2:52 pm Arguments from mathematics and reason are non empirical - Evidence from design and history are begging the question
Evidence from revelation and existential experiences cannot be tested - Moral arguments are begging the question
The point is that one can make a case for faith from exactly the kinds of things universities and colleges use to make cases all the time. It's just that for a skeptic who decides he's not prepared to see any evidence as evidence, there's no such thing as evidence. But the fault there is not the evidence: it's the epistemological presupposition of the observer. My suggestion would be that you should take a look at these arguments for yourself, and see if what you think at the moment is true about them actually is.
I believe you'll find it's not.
Not at all. A belief held in the face of no evidence is not a good belief. Beliefs are, instead, extensions of evidence into further cases. In that sense, the scientist who has performed 30 lab tests of his hypothesis is exercising belief when he says, "Y'know, I think this will work outside the lab too, in the less-controlled conditions of the real world." And he's exercising faith that the 31st, 32nd, or 1,008th trial of his theory would not defeat his earlier results, too. Because no scientist in the history of the world has ever performed all the possible trials on even one hypothesis. At some point, all trials stop, and the scientist says, "Well, that's good enough." Does he know that for sure? No. But he believes it. And he believes it, we hope, on good warrant too.Belief by its very nature cannot be falsified because it is the acceptance of a proposition that is taken to be true
but for which there is insufficient / zero evidence to support it [ this applies to all belief not just belief in God ]
Again, it's clear you don't know what those arguments I listed actually say. If you did, you wouldn't characterize them at all in the way you do.God is taken to be real so empirical evidence is what is required to demonstrate his existence
Logical arguments and personal testimonies cannot do this and so they can be easily discarded
Take the historical argument: why would it be invalid for a historian to suppose Caesar's Gaulic campaign took place, when he has documentary evidence it did? Your suggestion would make not just Biblical history, but ALL historical knowledge impossible. Likewise personal testimony. In a court of law, it's often the centrepiece of a determination of truth: why would you rule it out a priori, without even knowing what the testimony was? Or take the mathematical argument: you assume it's non-empirical, but it's both mathematical AND empirical. If you knew those arguments, you would know you've criticized them entirely inaccurately.
So it must be the case that you don't really know those arguments, I guess.
Why not find out, though? What is keeping you from informing yourself on them, even if only to dismiss them on good grounds -- if indeed, they are so easily dispatched as you seem to suggest? What are you afraid of? Is your skepticism on such shaky ground that it cannot stand knowing the counter-arguments?
I would hope not. But if I can read Nietzsche, Hume, Freud, Marx, Jung, and Darwin, what would keep you from investigating any good arguments that are skeptical of Atheism? Why wouldn't you consider them? Have you, perhaps, not so much certainty about your convictions as you would like? But if so, hiding from the evidence would surely be a poor way to fortify unbelief. So surely you could invest a little time in actually understanding the arguments, no?
