Theists, are you immune to being decieved?

[Statler Waldorf]

I am willing to revise anything that I hold as true, if the evidence can show otherwise. We are not talking about debating the reliability of our senses. We are not talking about whether or not I, personally, can trust that when I am looking at a rock, it is in fact a rock (well, a little we are).

Sure we are, if you were indeed delusional or being deceived then you would be unable to trust your senses or have any confidence that you could know anything about the exterior world; and yet you are assuming these two claims are true in order to argue that you are not delusional or being deceived. This is no different than a Christian saying they know they are not being deceived because God says so in the Bible; but if they were in fact being deceived then what God says in the Bible is all part of the deception.

I can certainly understand why you would want to take the conversation in that direction, because if you feel that you've undermined reality and all objectivity, then suddenly there is no conversation worth having. If a belief in God requires rejecting every human faculty of experience as a means of its defense, then by all means, carry on. But I will not participate.

I am pointing out the fact that your objection applies to everyone equally and therefore is irrelevant to the truth of atheism or theism. There could be a great evil demon deceiving all of us, we could all just be brains in a vat being stimulated to perceive what we perceive to be real. Like I said, it can be fun to ponder such things but they do nothing to support your position over mine.

I'm willing to bet that's not what you aim to do. I think we can both agree on a few things that would be necessary to have a conversation like this.

I guess I am not seeing your point.

I think you will concede that we both can see, touch, and hear things. Some of the things we feel can be verified, while others cannot.

Only if we are not delusional or being deceived; but wasn’t that the entire point of your original post?

I think you are able to recognize the difference between Objectivity and Subjectivity, and I'm willing to bet that you recognize the relevance that such words would have in a conversation of this sort.

I recognize the difference.

I think you will concede that there are things in the exterior universe, some of which are knowable, while others are not.

Yes, but only because the exterior Universe was made by the same God who made me and desires for me to learn about what He has made.

Are we going to be able to have a conversation about something real, or is it going to be derailed by a devil's advocate defending a sort of Pyrrhonism in order to avoid an honest exchange of ideas? I personally think that would be a waste of time, and I would really not like to have a conversation intended for students during their first week of philosophy.

I think it is a bit of a waste of time to ask a theist, “can you prove that you are not delusional?” when you yourself cannot prove that you are not delusional either. That is my point.

Can we skip the brain in a vat, and find common ground, or do we continue under the pretense that nothing can really be known and conversations are useless?

I do not believe that nothing can be known; but my reasons for believing this are theistic.

We are talking about beliefs that are either accurate depictions of reality, or they are not.

Yup. However, the way you framed the questions makes us question what reality is.

---

This conversation is contingent upon us already establishing that we share the same faculties for discerning such things, and in fact, such faculties are required to do so to discern anything at all. Let's not waste time by starting where Descartes began. What would be the point of reading philosophy if every time we wanted to have a philosophical conversation we had to start from the very beginning?

Can you recognize a standard by which we determine reality from fantasy? Or am I a pumpkin if it seems real to me that I am a pumpkin?

If I am not a pumpkin, how is it that we establish that I am not without some standard by which people are determined as people, and pumpkins are determined as pumpkins (senses, objectivity, verification, and so forth)?

If in the event that I am presented evidence that I am not a pumpkin, and I ignore this evidence in favor of the belief that I am, by your previously defended rationale, it would seem that I had as much right to call YOU delusional for saying otherwise. If not, why?

---

Is this your quote or is this someone else’s? I can have this conversation with other theists because we have reasons for believing that we can know the Universe through our senses. Since you are a materialist, I do not see any way you can justify the same belief; this is why it is difficult to find common ground. I believe you have a fundamental flaw in your view of reality.