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@Double_R
I harbor similar reservations about sources. That's why I always go with the "decide winner" voting style. Just to me if I won or lost, no need to break it down by arguments, sources, conduct. Just give me a holistic assessment.
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@Athias
Perhaps the inconsistency is with your measure, and not the variance in human capability.
I think my measure is consistent. The issue, in my view, is with the market, which assigns rewards and punishments in ways that are not always just.
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@Athias
What measures do apply when attributing "merit"?
Any wealth acquired through privileged birth and/or dumb luck is undeserved. Billionaires are frequently born into wealth, and they - virtually by definition - are exceedingly lucky. Compensation is earned on the basis of hard work and skill. It cannot be credibly claimed that billionaires are millions of times harder working and more intelligent than the average person. The spectrum of human capabilities simply doesn't vary that much.
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@FLRW
Rather than income, I'm more interested in taxation based on net worth. That's where the greatest inequality (and revenue) is. Though I don't know if taxation based on net worth is viable.
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@Double_R
Sounds like a disagreement over rhetoric than substance. "Do not warrant the obscene wealth they have accumulated" can be swapped out with "deserve" without changing the point.
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The 700+ American billionaires hold more wealth than the bottom half of households. I think no billionaire has or ever will deserve that much money. Therefore, we should feel free to impose tax rates as high as is beneficial for the common good. What do you think?
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@Greyparrot
I vaguely recall you stating NATO expansion is what provoked Russia into its invasion of Ukraine.
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The US Ought to Support NATO Expansion to Sweden and Finland: https://www.debateart.com/debates/3436-the-us-ought-to-support-nato-expansion-to-sweden-and-finland
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Some of you may be interested: https://www.debateart.com/debates/3418-diverse-casting-in-amazons-lord-of-the-rings-is-desirable
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A black, female, BEARDLESS Dwarf princess?? Is that elf BLACK?!
No sir, no sir I won't stand for it.
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Anyone who values a Western-led, liberal international order ought to hope Macron wins re-election. A President Le Pen would be a dream come true for Putin, a golden opportunity to drive a wedge in the West's united response to the invasion of Ukraine.
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Here is my open debate on how the US should respond to the potential use of chemical weapons in Ukraine: https://www.debateart.com/debates/3416-us-military-response-to-russian-chemical-weapon-use-in-ukraine
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@Pendragon524
Hey! Sorry for not replying for a while. I missed the notification indicating you replied, and I just assumed you had forgotten about this thread.
I really appreciate your patience and clarity in explaining the structure of your beliefs. I think I am ready to end this 'interview,' assuming you are as well. Under most circumstances, the goal of Street Epistemology is to cause the interviewee to realize their confidence in their belief is out of proportion to the justification they can provide. However, this is obviously not the case for you, and I have no doubt that if we continued, your confidence level would not change.
A knock-off benefit of Street Epistemology is that the interviewer gets to learn about another person's beliefs. I think this dialogue has served that purpose very well. You have exposed me to philosophical concepts I otherwise would've never encountered, and I've definitely developed a deep understanding of how you've arrived at your beliefs.
So, assuming you're ok with it, I'm happy to end the interview here.
If you want to do any kind of de-brief, in which we talk about our conversation, that's fine by me.
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@Pendragon524
Regarding your sub-view of foundationalism:
According to this school of foundationalism, basic beliefs are capable of being refuted. They are justified only in the absence of some reason to doubt them.
You've given the example of sitting on the floor in front of your laptop as a basic belief. You say it is basic because your sensory experience tells you this is so, and you have no reason to doubt your sensory experience. Therefore, you hold the belief that you're sitting in front of your laptop as basic. As you pointed out, this basic belief is subject to refutation, for instance, if you learned you were on drugs, this would cause you to doubt your sensory experience.
I have two questions about this view of basicality.
First, I'm wondering if there is an alternative sub-view within foundationalism that would approach this situation differently. For example, could someone look at the facts and say: "The basic belief is that Pendragon sees the laptop in front of him. The inferred belief is that there is a laptop in front of him." Under this interpretation, the existence of your laptop is inferred because it is based on two basic beliefs: 1) his sensory experience says the laptop is in front of him. 2) he trusts his sensory experience. I'm asking this question on the understanding that a basic belief is both unprovable and based on no other beliefs. I suppose there's a level of semantics here. When is one belief to be viewed as based off another and when is it to be viewed as a genuine origin point?
Second, putting aside this alternative view of foundationalism I'm asking about, I was hoping you could make explicit the connection between your laptop example and your basic belief in God. I understand that you have a sensory experience of your laptop, which you have decided you have no reason to doubt. Do you similarly have a sensory experience of God? You've previously described your sense of God as "innate" and intuitive. Are these senses analogous to the sensory experience of the laptop?
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@Pendragon524
Thank you for your response. Your explanation about your adherence to the view that basic beliefs can be refuted was helpful.
I also read the article you shared. To my understanding, Plantinga ends the paper by rejecting standards for determining basicality that have been proposed by others, yet he doesn't provide his own standards. Even so, he seemingly feels comfortable that God is a basic belief while the Great Pumpkin is not. I don't understand how Plantinga can reach these conclusions without his own standard for basicality. Am I missing something?
Moving away from Plantinga, if only slightly, I'm wondering if a Muslim could use your understanding of basic beliefs to come to the conclusion that Allah exists. What do you think?
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@Athias
Unfortunately, I think we ought to end the conversation here. I am clearly not able to converse in a meaningful way with you, a problem that I take all the blame for. I appreciate your patience with me, and I hope you will not think of this thread as a waste of time. If you do feel that your time has been wasted, I apologize.
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@Pendragon524
Wow, thank you! You can probably tell that I am not as philosophically inclined as you are, so this concept of basic and inferred beliefs is very enriching for me. I've pondered the basic brain-in-a-vat problem before, but this is a very neat way of categorizing things.
At the risk of losing focus: what's the rationale for accepting un-provable basic beliefs as true?
And more to the point: why is God belief basic instead of inferred?
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@Athias
the immaterial/abstract can be perceived, ironically as exampled by abstracts like mathematics
How is perceiving mathematics like perceiving God? I think what's confusing me is that we can hold the abstraction of math in our heads, but we can also verify its integrity in the real world. It would seem to me that we can't do the same with the concept of God. Am I missing something?
We know that the minor premise is true given anecdotal evidence.
What anecdotal evidence exists to support the minor premise?
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@Athias
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm still not with you. I apologize for my continued confusion. Perhaps another tack will help us get on the same page.
All which is perceived must exist.God is perceived.Therefore, God exists.
Ultimately, this is the statement I'm trying to understand. So, taking a step back, could you explain how this works for you in practice?
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@Pendragon524
I don't blame you for finding the numerical scale disagreeable, and I appreciate your best efforts to work with it regardless. If you don't mind, I'd like to take a closer look at this intuitive sense category.
In re-reading your previous writing on this category, two passages struck me:
we are all rational to believe in an external world even though we could never give a non-circular argument for its reality, and in the same way, I am rational to believe in God because I experience Him
and
it's not as if I literally hear God speaking or have visions of God. It is more sublime and probably more along the lines of an intuitive sense of God.
I was hoping you could expand on this idea generally, potentially with an eye toward these two passages. This assumes I have in fact identified key passages and haven't accidentally misunderstood their importance.
Also, specifically, I'm wondering what this intuitive sense of God is like?
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@fauxlaw
Great, thank you. I think I understand you clearly.
Having clarified that, I'd like to go back to posts #7 and #8 and ask about these two reasons you provide.
Which reason is most important for your high confidence? Are they equally important? If you didn't have one of the two reasons, what would happen to your confidence level?
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@BrotherDThomas
Thanks for the tip
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@Pendragon524
Ok, I appreciate your further explanation. I find the distinction between privately accessible intuition and publicly accessible evidence to be very helpful for my understanding.
With the two categories understood, I'd like to ask my next substantive question:
What is the relationship of the two categories as they relate to your belief confidence? Or, more specifically, if we took one of the categories away, what would happen to your confidence level? For example, if you decided your privately accessible intuition was not supportive of your belief, would the publicly accessible arguments maintain your belief, and if so, at what level of confidence? I'm also interested in the inverse situation - what if you decided the publicly accessible arguments for God were not reliable, thus leaving only your intuition to rely upon?
Note: having watched many Street Epistemology YouTube videos, I've noticed that sometimes interviewees find these type of hypotheticals disagreeable. If you'd rather offer a critique of the question than an answer, I'll keep an open mind.
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@fauxlaw
Thank you for the detailed reply! I appreciate you taking the time to communicate. Hopefully you'll find your effort to be worth it. I'll certainly do my best to make that so as we continue.
In typical fashion, I'd like to restate what you said in my own words, to ensure I'm on the same page as you. Here is my understanding of your definition of faith:
- Faith is a sixth sense - it gives you a noticeable physiological reaction (warmth)
- Faith can only be perceived if one is in touch with the Holy Spirit
- Faith is only operable when the belief in question is true (even if our other five senses can't prove said belief is true)
How am I doing?
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@Athias
So if I did away with the abstraction of quantification, I'd be on track? So, for example, if I said:
I have a black box, and I tell you there may or may not be a cat inside. You firmly believe there is a cat in the box, therefore a cat exists within the box.
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@EtrnlVw
I greatly appreciate your patience with me up to this point. Unfortunately, I think we've reached a point where it's past my capacity to have a productive conversation in the fashion of street epistemology. In other words, I would like to end our dialogue here. I hope you do not view the time you've devoted to this as a waste. If so, I apologize.
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@PGA2.0
Realities origin or just origins?
Whichever you prefer.
Or: Christianity is more reasonable in making sense of origins.
Sure.
Is empiricism the worldview you choose to defend?
Yep.
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@Pendragon524
For the sake of my own understanding, I'll repeat what you said back to you in my own words. Let me know if I'm misunderstanding anything.
Your three main reasons for belief are:
1) Innate sense - you feel it in daily life and the feeling makes you confident
2) Logical arguments for God's existence
3) Historical evidence apropos Jesus
Further, I understand that 1) is your main reason. For this reason, I'd like to dive a little deeper. Can you provide an example of how this works? What does it mean to experience God in your life?
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@Athias
Perhaps I'm slow, because I don't think I understand this very well at all:
Above I clearly delineate the description of existence, which primarily focuses on state of being. You're clearly asking me to quantify that which is contained in a jar. If I offer you a number--any number--I would then have to accept the mathematical standard upon which your query is premised. Your question doesn't seek to explore the scope of belief, but rather, whether "whim" can invalidate accepted standards.
I'm so confused that my questions might not even be the right ones to ask, but here I go:
What is the difference between a description of existence and quantification?
Perhaps to be more direct, how is the jar of candies example different from God belief?
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@EtrnlVw
Thank you for sharing those. I feel like I now have a better idea of the phenomenon you're citing as evidence. My apologies for taking so long to develop an adequate understanding.
Two more questions, if you don't mind:
1) How does a great number of reported supernatural experiences support your belief in an all-present consciousness you described at the beginning of this chat? Could another person look at the same body of evidence and come to a different conclusion about the divine?
2) If you were to lose confidence in the veracity of these supernatural claims, how would that affect your belief confidence?
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@PGA2.0
Proposed Title: Christianity vs. Empiricism: Making Sense of Reality's Origin
Proposed Resolution: Christianity is a superior worldview for making sense of the origin of reality.
BoP: Shared. Pro defends Christianity while Con proposes an alternative worldview (empiricism).
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@EtrnlVw
I still have quite a few questions, but before I consider asking any more, maybe you should send me that link. That way, I can try answering my questions first and reserve your time for the ones that I cannot answer on my own.
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@Pendragon524
That's perfectly fine. I appreciate that interviewees can be slightly baffled by the 0-100 scale. Your answer as it stands is perfectly fine. Thank you! So, on to the next question.
What is/are the main reason(s) for your confidence in your belief? Note that an in-depth defense of your reasons is not necessary. Because this is an interview, all you really need to do is outline your reasons.
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@fauxlaw
I would also like to explore faith more. I have two questions, which you may wish to address in an inter-related fashion. Whatever you deem best.
1) Can you define faith?
2) I want to make sure we're on the same page: this warm feeling you get when making what you believe is the correct decision - this flows from your faith, is that correct?
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@Pendragon524
Great, thank you!
On a scale of 0-100 (with 0 meaning "not at all" and 100 meaning "without a doubt") how confident are you that your belief is correct?
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@Athias
Say there was a jar filled to the brim with many little candies. Suppose also that someone firmly believed the jar contained exactly 1,000 candies. Do 1,000 candies exist within the jar?
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@EtrnlVw
So spiritual experiences, religious sources, NDE's, OBE's, paranormal activity and even ghost sightings
I think it would be helpful for me if we could examine this a bit more. My understanding is that this body of evidence is the main support for your high confidence. So, a couple questions:
- Could you explain what NDEs and OBEs are?
- Can you provide a specific example in which you experienced one of these things? Or, if you prefer, could you share an instance of one of these things occurring to someone else?
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@Athias
So, should I understand your use of the word perceive to be roughly equivalent to acknowledged and believed?
Thus, if someone believed something, that would mean it is perceived, and because it is perceived it exists?
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@PGA2.0
If you'd like to have a debate, then send me a challenge after negotiating a resolution and pertinent definitions with me. I am not interested in this form of interrogation in a forum setting.
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@Pendragon524
In this context, I would explain the difference between description and explanation by referring to argumentative writing. A debater states a claim "I believe the Christian God exists," (description) and then provides a justification for why they support this claim (explanation).
If this distinction isn't workable for you, please just feel free to begin introducing your God belief to me in whatever manner is most comfortable.
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@fauxlaw
Forgive me if I strip your reply of its elegance as I attempt to restate the most salient points. If you think I'm missing something or misunderstood, let me know.
To my understanding, here are your main reasons for holding such high confidence in your belief:
1) The concept of a divine father/divine generational structure is in keeping with your notion of earthly family structures. Or, to put it more crudely, because humans have parents and children, there must also be a divine system of parents and children that involves us.
2) You say you know God and can speak to him just as you speak to other family members. Again, this may be overly crude, but to my understanding this is a form of direct evidence of God's existence (i.e. "the God talked to me, so I know he exists").
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@Athias
I think it might be useful for me to restate what I think you've said in your own words. I think we're reaching some crucial epistemological territory, and I want to ensure we're on the same page. So, let me know if I'm incorrect in restating anything you've said:
I think you're saying that because believers and deniers can perceive god, god exists. To my understanding, your use of the word "perceive" is synonymous with "imagine" or "conceive." In other words, even a denier can conceive of the notion of god, thus, under your framework, they perceive god, thus making him exist.
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@EtrnlVw
At this stage, I understand that you think there is a massive body of evidence supporting your belief. I understand this evidence is based on observation. But I don't yet understand what the evidence is exactly. Has someone seen a ghost? Do things move without any apparent physical cause? Basically, examples would help me to better understanding what this evidence is that has you so convinced.
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@Athias
As a matter of genuine fact-finding, I'm interested to hear more about the following premises:
God is perceived.
How is he perceived?
All material or spiritual beings exist.
Why is this so?
I appreciate your continuing participation and your patience with my questions. As you can see, RM is very displeased with my conduct. If I offend you at any point, feel free to stop responding. I will only continue communicating if you continue communicating.
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@Athias
What are these irrefutable premises/logic, if I may?
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@EtrnlVw
I assure you it is not my intent to selectively quote and/or mock you. I'm sorry RM has become convinced otherwise. If at any time you feel disrespected, you are of course welcome to simply stop participating. I will not harass you about.
Assuming you'd like to continue, I'd like to dig a little deeper into this idea of a) first-hand supernatural experience and b) cross-referencing with others' experiences.
Would you mind providing a specific example of a) and b)?
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@Athias
Thank you for another swift reply.
Could you please outline the reason(s) for such a high confidence?
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@PGA2.0
At the outset, I'd like to draw a distinction between what you are doing with me and what I am doing with the interviewees in the 5 SE chats. I am politely exploring the epistemological bases for people's beliefs, whereas you seem much more intent on proving me wrong (i.e. "challenging" me). Street Epistemology is not a contest or a clash of beliefs. It's a respectful Q&A between interviewer and interviewee.
1) What is your explanation of the origins of existence? Why does anything exist?
I don't know.
2) How did the existence of this universe happen?
I don't know.
Is your worldview capable of making sense of these first two questions?
I believe so. Because I lack the evidence to answer these questions, I simply say "I don't know." I think beliefs should be substantiated by evidence. If there is no evidence to substantiate belief, there should be no belief.
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@Athias
Ok, so how confident are you that this God (spiritual being) exists? If you wish, you can respond with a scale, 0-100.
On a scale of 0-100 (0 being "not at all" and 100 being "without a doubt"), how confident are you that your God belief is correct?
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