(August 12, 2016 at 2:18 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(August 12, 2016 at 2:07 pm)Whateverist Wrote: Steve if all you're arguing for is the right to choose the beliefs you wish to regard as foundational, have at it.  Of course the same can be said by anyone who holds a whacko idea very highly so long as doing so results in no life threatening consequences.  The Heaven's Gate group is an example of 39 people who were so convinced of their whacko idea that they committed mass suicide in order to meet up with the supernatural power they were convinced was waiting for them.  Amazingly none of them were awarded a Darwin Award.

There are conditions to being a 'properly basic belief' (a technical term). One of which is that there is no external defeaters for your belief.

Defeaters like this: 

“Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us – he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” (Psalm 137:9)

Couldn't I just construct a belief that by definition has no external defeaters, and then call it 'properly basic'?

(August 12, 2016 at 2:09 pm)Whateverist Wrote:

(August 12, 2016 at 2:05 pm)SteveII Wrote: No, not damaged. Atypical. I don't think the lack of the intuition most people have prevents belief in God.

What do you make of the fact that so many of us are possessed of this 'god hole'?  Perhaps you belief is less basic than you'd like to believe.

The Bible teaches in many places that God has written on the hearts of men/women things like morality, knowledge of God, etc.

(August 12, 2016 at 2:26 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: Couldn't I just construct a belief that by definition has no external defeaters, and then call it 'properly basic'?

Why not, isn't that what Steve has done?

(August 12, 2016 at 2:26 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(August 12, 2016 at 2:09 pm)Whateverist Wrote: What do you make of the fact that so many of us are possessed of this 'god hole'?  Perhaps you belief is less basic than you'd like to believe.

The Bible teaches in many places that God has written on the hearts of men/women things like morality, knowledge of God, etc.

The bible also teaches a lot of terrible things, such in the verses you are still ignoring. Why leave those parts out, Steve? I'm quoting directly from your favorite book.

Steve, you think the New Testament is evidence for God and that just demonstrates that you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." (1 Samuel 15:3)

Is this the good book, Steve?

It's not possible to read the Bible and remain a Christian without being in denial, tbh.

(August 12, 2016 at 2:26 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: Couldn't I just construct a belief that by definition has no external defeaters, and then call it 'properly basic'?

There are other conditions like properly functioning cognitive faculties, cognitive faculties are operating reliably aimed at truth, and formed in an appropriate epistemic environment (meaning you have, at the very least, internal reasons for the belief). I think these would preclude a belief constructed just to avoid defeaters.

Your reasoning is pathetic, Steve.