What's the best way to shut up a Presuppositionalist?

[Esquilax]

Yeah, you're under no obligation to take a presuppositionalist seriously until they can substantiate their claims. By attempting to tackle their argument seriously you're giving unjust power to their delusion that simply calling "first!" beside the concept of knowledge gives them ownership over it.

If they try to tell you reason and logic are impossible without god, then just walk away and pretend they aren't there. After all, if you can't have knowledge as an atheist, then you can't possibly know that you're talking to a presuppositional apologist, and therefore, according to their own argument, you aren't.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Is she female? If so, I can suggest something.

This does, in fact, work on my deist, however I have yet to try it on a Presuppositionalist.

[SteelCurtain]

Is she female? If so, I can suggest something.

This does, in fact, work on my deist, however I have yet to try it on a Presuppositionalist.

You have a deist? How did you capture it? Do you keep it in your basement? I'm so jealous.

[Jackalope]

Is she female? If so, I can suggest something.

This does, in fact, work on my deist, however I have yet to try it on a Presuppositionalist.

It works on atheists as well. :p

[Cyberman]

I don't remember that far back...

[MindForgedManacle]

1) Ask them how God terminates the supposed infinite regress of epistemic justifications. They claim that knowledge must include justification, and the justifications must never end. But they also claim that for you to know things, you must either be omniscient or have revelation from someone who is omniscient... Lolwut? If the trail of justifications never end, how does God ever attain ANY knowledge, much less omniscience?

2) When they make a hullabaloo about certainty, ask them what certainty has to do with anything. They use Plato's definition of knowledge being a "justified true belief". No where does certainty play any actual role. They'll make a retarded analogy that basically says that "if you could be wrong about some claim or belief, yoi don't KNOW that claim". Which is fucking stupid. For example, I know that my mother loves me. That is a belief which is true, and I have justification for holding it (i.e my mother's claims to love me and her actions indicating that she does in fact love me). Regardless, it's POSSIBLE my mother doesn't actually love me and so I could be wrong about it. Am I contradicting myself? No, because the truth component of knowledge is ascertained via one's justification for the belief.
They don't get that being certain about something doesn't tell you anything other than your feeling about the belief/claim in question. So when they ask if "Is it impossible for God to reveal something such that we can know it for certain?", they're commiting an equivocation fallacy between "certainty" and a "certitude".

3) When they ask "Is it impossible for God to exist?", ask them to solve the central question of ontology: What does it mean to be? This is probably the most mysterious question in ALL of philosophy, and the epistemic hurdles one would need to jump before you could even attempt answering thisare such that it's widely thought this question cannot be answered. And since their question is basically asking you to answer this question (because they aren't asking your opinion, but for an unqualified assessment of reality), they can't complain if you refuse to proceed in the conversation until they've given an impervious answer to the central question of ontology.


4) Ask them to justify their axioms since they're asking you to do the same. Remember, NONE of the people who use presuppositional apologetics actually knows a damn thing about how logicians discuss inference rules and axioms, so their questions about them are patently absurd.

[JuliaL]

I carry a card.
On the card it says in illuminated Latin script that everything I believe is true.
I just point to the card.
It's good to have a presupposed unassailable reference.

[Coffee Jesus]

The TAG is a transcendental argument that attempts to prove that God is the precondition of all human knowledge and experience, by demonstrating the impossibility of the contrary; in other words, that logic, reason, or morality cannot exist without God. The argument proceeds as follows:[3]

If there is no god (most often the entity God, defined as the god of the Christian Bible, Yahweh), knowledge is not possible.
Knowledge is possible (or some other statement pertaining to logic or morality).
Therefore a god exists.

How do they argue for the first premise?

[Minimalist]

What's the best way to shut up a Presuppositionalist?

I'll stick with the .357 magnum.

[Esquilax]

How do they argue for the first premise?

Generally- and I'm serious here- they go with "it says so in the bible."

That's why it's presuppositional: they presuppose the bible is true, and therefore everything it says in there is a problem for everyone else... so deal with it.