(December 14, 2015 at 7:36 pm)drfuzzy Wrote:(December 14, 2015 at 6:21 pm)Delicate Wrote: Wow. There's a lot you don't understand.
He isn't trying to parallel xtian terminology. Epistemology has not been hijacked by xtians (far from it most epistemologists are atheists).
And fundamentally, his definition of faith is false and doesn't correspond to what Christians define as faith.
His "street epistemology" would fail with any moderately informed theist.
He's been called out on it, and a discussion between him and a theist resulted in him being absolutely destroyed. The guy doesn't even have a PhD in philosophy, but a degree in education or something of the sort.
For this reason, I think smart atheists (who are informed about things like religion and epistemology) don't look to him for guidance.
It's interesting that a simple internet search on epistemology will bring up dozens of xtian sites . . . with names such as "The Institute of Bible Defense" and "The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry".
Boghossian doesn't have to have a Ph.D. in Philosophy. His focus is on pointing out cognitive dissonance within the confines of debate - something he does quite well.
Faith is described, by xtians, as a belief in things unseen and unknowable. This is a belief in things that are not possible to prove by scientific means. I hear about faith every Sunday, and I was raised Pentecostal. Faith is belief in woo. It's the adamant belief that something is true because the bible, or a pastor, or an organization says so, and it is considered special and holy and worthy and godlike. Saying "I know god exists, because I have faith" is a lie. You do not know god exists. You simply choose to believe it.
Somehow because an internet search on epistemology brings up xtian sites, therefore xtians have hijacked epistemology? What kind of defective reasoning is this? This is why I lack belief that there is anything rational about atheism.
Also, any imagined cognitive dissonance is purely his own fantasy. It's predicated on a definition of faith that only works if you ignore the evidence and beg the question. And this can be demonstrated as true.
Quote:Dr. Boghossian: Faith is not a virtue. It is absolutely not a virtue. It is an unreliable epistemology and part of the problem is that people think that holding a belief tenaciously, being a person of faith, makes you a good person. Being a person of faith does not make you a good person. It just means that you have a process of thinking about the world that is less likely to lead you to the truth. Once we make that shift from faith as a morality to faith as an epistemology, I think the house of cards will crumble and everything that is built upon the house – religion, everything – will fall with it.
Dr. Craig: This is so fundamental. This is a watershed. He says that faith is an unreliable epistemology. He wants to make faith an epistemological category instead of a moral virtue. It is right there that we need to dig in our heels and say this is a misunderstanding of faith. Faith is not an epistemological category. It is not a way of knowing something. Faith is a way of trusting something. Faith is trusting in that which you have reason to believe is true. So it is once you have come to believe that something is true using reliable epistemological means that you can then place your faith or trust in that thing. To do so is a virtue. It is a virtue to have faith in God. For example, to trust in him. So Boghossian is wrong right out of the blocks here and what will happen now is the trajectories will increasingly diverge as we go on. So you’ve got to stop it right out of the blocks, at the beginning, and say, “No, you are incorrect. You are construing faith as an epistemological category.” It is not that. Faith is one of the many different virtues.
Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/a-manual-...z3uLL3n2xu
