Such deep understanding as all serious beliefs have the same rights, would shake the world of faith. Religions would have to unite after looking at this fact. But its impossible, because leaders of the church are greedy and wouldnt want to share donations and followers.

EU is fine example of how greed works in large unions.

(August 16, 2016 at 11:41 am)SteveII Wrote:

(August 16, 2016 at 11:20 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: Right...

"It is tempting to raise the following sort of question. If belief in God can be properly basic, why cannot just any belief be properly basic? Could we not say the same for any bizarre aberration we can think of? What about voodoo or astrology? What about the belief that the Great Pumpkin returns every Halloween? Could I properly take that as basic? Suppose I believe that if I flap my arms with sufficient vigor, I can take off and fly about the room; could I defend myself against the charge of irrationality by claiming this belief is basic? If we say that belief in God is properly basic, will we not be committed to holding that just anything, or nearly anything, can properly be taken as basic, thus throwing wide the gates to irrationalism and superstition?"

At any time, you can offer defeaters for a properly basic belief to show that it is not true. Go ahead, what is the defeater that shows that God does not exist? A 'properly basic belief' is both a belief that does not rely on inference and may be true. If it is not possible to be true, then it is not a properly basic belief.

So it's our job to show that your unfalsifiable claim is not true? That old game again?

(August 16, 2016 at 11:30 am)SteveII Wrote:

(August 16, 2016 at 10:17 am)bennyboy Wrote: And what year, exactly, are those letters dated?  What's "just a few years" and how do you know, exactly?

You'd think if a dude was walking on freaking water, healing crowds of sick people, and doing water-to-wine party tricks, the Roman literature would be FULL FULL FULL of mention of him.  Instead, he's pretty much completely absent except by those who formed his church decades after his supposed death.

Are you sure the document evidence is as solid as you think it is?  Cuz I'm pretty sure it's not.

If you want to know the dates of 27 different documents, look them up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible

So, your reason why my belief is 'laughable' is...what? There would have been more surviving Roman literature on what happened in Palestine during the life of Jesus? That is the criteria for laughable??? You're sure the evidence of the NT is not solid, yet...nothing of substance has been forthcoming.

Why are you quoting me, and then straw-manning the word "laughable"?

See, here's the thing you don't get.  We aren't Christian.  If you want us to believe what you believe, then you'll have to demonstrate that it's worth adopting your beliefs.  Quoting fantastical tales from 2000 years ago won't do this, unless you can provide a great deal of convergent evidence.  You really have none at all, so far as I know.

What about the fantastical tales of ancient Babylonians, Egyptions or Romans?  They are MUCH better documented, and by many more sources, than the Bible.  Should I demand that you disprove the existence of Ra, or Zeus, or whatever?

See, literally whatever you say, whatever historical or logical argument, requires special pleading.   You must allow very liberal (i.e. low) standards of evidence to stand as meaningful, but deny the same (or even better) standard of evidence for many other world views and belief systems.

The problem is, non-Christians will not entertain your special pleading.  They will, instead, ask you for evidence compelling enough TO THEM to make it worth adopting your ideas.  Which, in this case, they know you cannot.  Thus the word salad.

This all seems like one giant, blatant retreat from the burden of providing evidence, and instead tangling the question up in threads of philosophy (bordering on sophistry).

(August 16, 2016 at 11:48 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: This all seems like one giant, blatant retreat from the burden of providing evidence, and instead tangling the question up in threads of philosophy (bordering on sophistry).

As I said, Trojan Horse. Kant opened the back door and Protestant 'intellectuals' have been trying sneak through it ever since.

(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.

(August 16, 2016 at 11:41 am)SteveII Wrote: At any time, you can offer defeaters for a properly basic belief to show that it is not true. Go ahead, what is the defeater that shows that God does not exist? A 'properly basic belief' is both a belief that does not rely on inference and may be true. If it is not possible to be true, then it is not a properly basic belief.

Again, the greatest defeater of ideas so ambiguous and irrelevant to mundane life is not a proof that God does not exist. It's indifference-- since such a belief is so little represented in day-to-day reality that it has no relevance at all to anyone who doesn't have a deep desire to maintain the God idea.

You are on an atheist forum. You presumably would like us to adopt your Christian view. You will have to demonstrate a reason why anyone here should give a shit about that view. So far, not only have you not done that, but you have not done it in a particular dry and uninteresting way-- playing with semantics, mostly. You'll have to let your light shine a little brighter than that, because so far this whole thread could be summarized as, "Watch some WLC videos."

(August 16, 2016 at 11:34 am)SteveII Wrote:

(August 16, 2016 at 10:47 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: Using Christian-cultivated terminology to justify Christian beliefs, Steve?  

"Belief in God is not irrational because theologians say that belief in God doesn't require evidence to be rational.  Therefore, it is completely rational."

In what universe is this not circular reasoning?

No, 'basic belief' and 'properly basic belief' are long-standing philosophical concepts that have nothing specific to do with religion. Your above characterization of the argument is way off so your conclusion is nonsense.

Except that Plantinga and Co. are shoving Christianity in as one of these "properly basic" beliefs without any justification at all. Also, news flash - philosophical concepts are not brute facts. They are entirely subject to rebuttal and criticism, which is plainly obvious in the case of your Reformed Epistemology woo-hoo. You and Wooters must get along beautifully...

'Burden of proof' shift detected.

(August 16, 2016 at 11:52 am)SteveII Wrote:

(August 16, 2016 at 11:29 am)Crossless1 Wrote: 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.

What's really worth discussing is why billions of people set such low standards for what they'll accept as good evidence for what they claim is the most important of questions -- standards so low they don't seem to apply them to any other aspects of their lives.