(August 16, 2016 at 11:29 am)Crossless1 Wrote:(August 16, 2016 at 10:30 am)SteveII Wrote: You responded to a comment where I mentioned that psychologist believe there is a god-shaped hole in our psyche. Not my assertion. I did assert other things. You didn't respond to those however.
The point of the conversation about 'is belief in God properly basic' (as opposed to just basic) centers around the fact that it is an intuition (not inferred--based on evidence) that God exists and therefore is warranted (as opposed to justified) to believe so. They only way to defeat this position is to show this belief to be false. Simply proposing another way this intuition may have developed is not a defeater.
The conclusion of this line of reasoning is that you (the atheist) are not justified in complaining that a Christian's belief in God is irrational. While there is other evidence, none is required if belief in God is 'properly basic'.
This post adequately demonstrates the sleight-of-hand Christians indulge in when they play the Plantinga 'properly basic' card. Whether belief in God (or, more accurately, a god) is properly basic is debatable but of no particular concern to me. If that's all you claim, Steve, then you are in exactly the same boat as any other theist, of any stripe, should they make the same claim. But that's not what you're up to, is it? Captial-G god (your god) is not believed in by way of intuition. It comes with a baggage train of claims concerning its qualities that are derived from your holy book. Belief in the Christian god cannot, by its nature, be properly basic and you have done nothing to bridge the chasm between a deist god (which might, arguably, be basic) and your god, except to repeat claims nobody else is buying. If we did, we'd be Christians.
You are correct. You do not get to the specific God of Christianity by intuition. Of course you need the details filled in. It is another argument in the cumulative case for the existence of God. The reason I think it worth talking about is that it illustrates why billions of people might believe on evidence that someone like yourself does not find compelling.