What the God debate is really about

[MindForgedManacle]

Our senses do not deceive us.

Technically, this one is not self-evident; however, further reflection reveals that it must be the case for there to be knowledge. Since all knowledge comes from reason applied to experience, it follows that no knowledge could be gained if sense data did not correspond with reality. Illusions happen when people misinterpret what their senses tell them. For example, everyone knows a straight stick looks bent when placed halfway into water. Someone could interpret this sense data to mean that the stick is actually bent. The sense data is not wrong; the viewer is merely mistaken about what he thinks he sees. By adding his store of sense data he can come to know about light refraction. If sense data was deceptive then he could not compare former experiences with current and future ones to distinguish between how things appear and how they actually are. Illusions also tell us not only about what we see, but how our brains interpret what we see. A correct interpretation of sense data, one that accounts for how things appear AND the viewer to which things appear gives us knowledge about both.

And it goes south. I would tend towards empiricism myself, but you don't seem to be appreciating relevant subtleties. Sure, I think knowledge comes from reason applied to experience, but one must be clear about the nature of that experience. All we have is our sense data. We assume experience reality, when in fact our experience is a filter of sorts, which is further filtered through language and cultural norms. So, when we see an apparently bent stick in water, you're right to say the sense data is not wrong, but you're wrong to say the viewer is wrong. They're RIGHT that they see a bent stick in the water, but the actual state of affairs does not bear out the truth of that belief.

But note the tensions - if not contradictions - in what you're saying. You're saying our senses can't deceive us, but then you present a case where they deceive us.

Sound reasoning yields knowledge. (slight modification from how earlier presented)

The counterfactual to this is: sound reasoning does not yield knowledge. If that were the case then no one could in any way justify their beliefs and there would be little point trying to understand anything at all. If reason was not available to us then we would have no means by which to interpret sense data.

The counter-factual to this is that one needs valid reasoning as well. One can, after all, have sound premises that aren't properly structured such to give one knowledge.

Facts cannot be true and false at the same time.(modified from earlier)

The point as written above stands as self-evident. Facts refer to how reality actually is. This excludes self-referential propositions like, “This sentence is false.”

You don't seemed to have grasped what Rasetsu and I were referring to. There are para-consistent logics that reject the Law of Non-contradiction. So for example, under dialetheism, the statement "This statement is false" is BOTH true and false; it's a dialetheia. And no, facts do not exclude self-referential statements. That was a bare assertion on your part. :p

Facts are universal and do not vary between individuals.

Knowledge of fact is imperfect. Opinions about what is or is not true can indeed vary, but without facts against which to compare, the beliefs could not be justified and no knowledge would be possible.

Isn't that a contradiction given your empiricism? After all, you're holding to the epistemic definition of "justified true belief". Truth is a property of a proposition or belief that accurately describes a given state of affairs (under correspondence theory), and so long as one has justification for said belief, you accept that such is knowledge. Hence, you seem to have put yourself in the position of affirming that we can't be wrong about things we know - and hence the things we know, we know perfectly (I think this position is called "infallibilism") - and yet you must simultaneously claim we know things imperfectly.

Sorry, but I didn’t have time to get to the most contested first principles on my list: “Out of nothing, nothing comes” and “That which does not begin cannot have an end, i.e. infinite regress”.

Ah, but those were the most interesting ones.

[Angrboda]

Our senses do not deceive us.

Technically, this one is not self-evident; however, further reflection reveals that it must be the case for there to be knowledge. Since all knowledge comes from reason applied to experience, it follows that no knowledge could be gained if sense data did not correspond with reality. Illusions happen when people misinterpret what their senses tell them. For example, everyone knows a straight stick looks bent when placed halfway into water. Someone could interpret this sense data to mean that the stick is actually bent. The sense data is not wrong; the viewer is merely mistaken about what he thinks he sees. By adding his store of sense data he can come to know about light refraction. If sense data was deceptive then he could not compare former experiences with current and future ones to distinguish between how things appear and how they actually are. Illusions also tell us not only about what we see, but how our brains interpret what we see. A correct interpretation of sense data, one that accounts for how things appear AND the viewer to which things appear gives us knowledge about both.

I think you're confusing self-refuting with self-evident in much of your list. However, this one stuck out. Since you're a dualist, the cause of our behaviors is not an empirical fact. The truth of what we perceive occurs in an other-world to which we have no sense data as to its substance and operation. So you can never close the loop here as you can never have sense access to both the perceived and that which perceives. It would seem a necessity of your worldview that true knowledge of sense data is impossible. I don't see how you can get around that.