RE: I can feel your anger
July 8, 2012 at 10:42 am
(This post was last modified: July 8, 2012 at 10:50 am by Napoléon.)
(July 8, 2012 at 10:01 am)CliveStaples Wrote: No, but I'm not the one who claims only to believe things that have sufficient evidence.
You don't choose to believe in that which is fact and can be proved by evidence. It is simply fact. It requires no 'believing'. Do you even know what the definition of belief is?
Quote:Quote:Not believing in something due to lack of evidence is the only rational position to take.
*edit* and yes, it isn't a belief as Norfolk said, it's a lack of belief.
Let's just get this straight, so there isn't confusion:
You guys are saying, "For any proposition p, if p lacks evidence then you shouldn't believe p." Call this proposition E (for Evidentialism).
Now, the "lack of belief" is with regard to p--you seem very keen on pointing out that lacking belief in p doesn't mean that you have some other belief.
But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about your belief in E.
It's not a belief, no matter how many times you stupidly say it is. Evidentialism as you call it, is the only rational way to look at the world around us. Now you can sit there and philosophise about bullshit you can and can't prove as much as you want. But there's a difference when it comes to using evidence. Evidence is used to discern fact from fiction, and if you want to disregard evidence on philosophical grounds then more fool you.
Evidence does not require belief like you are making out. It is not something you can debate over. There is either evidence supporting a hypothesis or there is not. If there is not then give me one rational reason, to think that such a hypothesis is true.