How does one respond to this argument?It's long but an interesting read. Thanks :)

[robvalue]

[Mister Agenda]

That was a bit much, I didn't read enough to see if your interlocutor had anything but tu quoque and ad hominems.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Fruyain, your critic's objection is pretty basic. In the above exchange you repeatedly put forth, in various ways, the proposition that “The truthfulness of all propositions must be empirically validated to count as knowledge.” You did so as if this proposition was a first principle even though the proposition will admit to no first principles. By its own measure it is a proposition whose truthfulness depends on prior evidence. At best, the proposition is self-referencing and at worst self-defeating.

[fruyian]

[Neo-Scholastic]

The great thing about Occam's Razor (Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.)  and Hitchens Razor (That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence)

You are applying only part of Occam's Razor. Among competing hypotheses that each explains all the relevant phenomena, the one with the fewest assumptions should be preferred. First, Occam's Razor is merely an epistomological guide. You cannot disprove a hypothesis using it. The hypothesis with greater number of assumptions could still be the correct one, even while adopting the lesser seems more reasonable. Secondly, it is a matter of debate whether the naturalist stance adequately accounts for all the things needed to be explained. Here, in the interest of time, I must only refer to the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Hitchen's Razor (or was it Sagan's) is just plain wrong. No type of inquiry would be possible without asserting first principles that do not require any prior evidence.

[pocaracas]

Didn't read the whole thing... sorry.... too much for work hours...

>The scientific method allows you to build a model based on your assertions, and to then make predictions based on that model. If verifiable evidence is found that agrees with the prediction made by your model, this strengthens the validity of your assertion.However, if new evidence is brought forward that disagrees with the established model of understanding, then the current model must be changed - no matter how long that model had been accepted!

But God is a philosophical question not an empirical scientific one. God is know by philosophical proofs not science. Again trying to dig up a Higgs boson from the fossil record.

But this nugget caught my eye (yes, I was parsing from the bottom up)

God is a philosophical question, huh?
This is where people... believers... quit grasping reality.

If god exists, then it is a part of reality... the same reality where science operates.
Certainly, it seems our science is limited to the physics of our Universe... and the god they assume exists would maybe require new science, but would still be accessible to proper testing.

If it's real, it's a part of reality, then it's something that can be probed.

Not, as this fellow says, a philosophical construct.
A philosophical construct is not worth belief, wars, temples, or anything.... it's just mental masturbation.
Just like Russel's Teapot.

Does it matter if I can conceptualize of something, and yet can't measure it?
Should I assume that something to be real?

I'd say no.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If god exists, then it is a part of reality... the same reality where science operates.

...the same reality in which science operates...

Other than parsimony, why do you believe that the physical universe exhausts the whole of reality?

What physical evidence justifies the scientific method as the only means by which someone can gain knowledge?

[pocaracas]

If god exists, then it is a part of reality... the same reality where science operates.

...the same reality in which science operates...

Other than parsimony, why do you believe that the physical universe exhausts the whole of reality?

What physical evidence justifies the scientific method as the only means by which someone can gain knowledge?

Maybe you should read the sentence I wrote right after the one you quoted...?

[Aoi Magi]

If god exists, then it is a part of reality... the same reality where science operates.

...the same reality in which science operates...

Other than parsimony, why do you believe that the physical universe exhausts the whole of reality?

What physical evidence justifies the scientific method as the only means by which someone can gain knowledge?

No, the physical universe might not exhaust the whole of reality as you put it, but if your claims include a god interacting with the physical universe then it is safe to assume that the claimed God should at least be partially observable within said physical universe.

Also no scientific method isn't the only way to gain knowledge but it is the only way to ascertain and validate said knowledge against our observable reality.

[robvalue]