No reason justifies disbelief.

[Belacqua]

dishonesty...a mind reader?

The two sentences of mine you quote are completely compatible. If you were interested in having a conversation you could see that, or I could explain it. But you're not.

Speaking of dishonest.

The day before yesterday you told a series of lies about me. I asked you to back them up. 

You pretend not to notice this, but it's clear. You lied and you can't admit it. 

You are a liar and a hypocrite.

[bennyboy]

How do you know what a quark is?  How do we detect it if it's part of everything?

I don't know. I'm not a scientist.

---

Why would I know if I was or wasn’t?  Not trolling. I mean that question sincerely.

If you were or weren't detecting God? Well, who knows? It depends whether God is real, and what God is.

[The Grand Nudger]

Starting with raw experience is an affirmation of empiricism.  A person who has a "religious experience" - that says god spoke to them or revealed something to them, or transported them to some place where they saw some thing..is explicitly invoking an empirical basis for their claim.

You are conflating subjective experience with empiricism.  That's a pretty poor affirmation of science as an exclusive methodology for seeking truth.

As previously commented on, you have misconceptions about empiricism.  Empiricism is the notion that all knowledge is derived from sense experience.  Subjective experience falls under that header.  It's pretty much the definition of the header. Every single sensory experience you or I have ever had has been a subjective experience, and it's brutally difficult to establish any subjective experience that is -not- a sensory experience.

"I think therefore I am."
You: You are observing your subjective experiences as objects, so that's an empirical realization.  Congratulations, you're doing science!

It could be an empirical observation, though simply making an empirical observation falls short of doing science.  If you hen take that experience and apply the method, you would be doing science.  

That's fine, if you are willing to accept Buddhist meditation systems and philosophical insight as science.  Sam Harris, I think, might actually agree.

But it's not what we normally mean when we use the word "science," and I don't think that it's what LadyForCamus and others in this thread mean when they used the word in opposition to the idea that insight might be a valid (or valuable) tool for seeking truth.

I wouldn't know, Camus and I are are having a discussion about it, but there's nothing preventing a person from using the method on their intuitions, and intuition may be based on empirical observation, itself. What we have been able to agree on, at least I think...is that even if intuition were distinct from empirical observation and capable of being a basis for knowledge...that just like empirical observation...it is in itself suspect on well established grounds and requiring some method of winnowing down false hits.

Case in point, we have done scientific research on buddhist (and broadly) meditations claims, as well as a whole range of alleged insights and intuitions. Their consistent dual failure to produce results or establish themselves as other than empirical is why both sets of claims have been abandoned by all but the most credulous researchers. Don't get me wrong, more power to the folks who keep beating their heads against that wall. They could always discover something tomorrow, just like the sun may not rise tomorrow.

[Mr.wizard]

I don't know how you could determine the reliability of something without using empirical data.

This is what I've been saying all along.

We can't think of any other way of being "reliable" because in our metaphysical view "reliable" is tautological with "science."

So by definition, we hold science to be the only possible reliable method.

Science is the study of the natural world, it is the label we put on the method that is used to determine what is most likely to be true. You want an example of a method that doesn't include the study of the natural world but is somehow shown to be reliable by beings existing in the natural world.

[Deesse23]

I don't know how you could determine the reliability of something without using empirical data.

This is what I've been saying all along.

We can't think of any other way of being "reliable" because in our metaphysical view "reliable" is tautological with "science."

So by definition, we hold science to be the only possible reliable method.

"I dont know" does not mean "I believe there is no other method possible", other than in your strawmans world.
Stop misrepersenting everybody else. Several people have explicitly stated that they are open to any other method that is *reliable*. The fact that you arent able to present one is exclusively your problem.

[veoli]

lol, whenever the word creator is mentioned I always think of Wendy Wright.

[Rahn127]

Why do I need something that is reliable ?

Well, for starters, I care about my own well being and I care about the well being of others.
I desire to stay alive for a good long while.

What are the things in my life that I want to rely on ?

I want to rely on the engineering that built my house and all of the components within it that have been tested for reliability.
Electrical, plumbing, insulation, dry wall, paint, cabinets, structural foundations.....the list goes on.
I don't want faulty wiring that hasn't been tested. I want a brand that I can rely on.

I want the engineering in my car to be reliable. I don't want things failing and falling apart on me at a high rate of speed.

I rely on my senses to help keep me safe. I don't go blindly walking around my city or driving around my city.
I don't need eyes that are unreliable. Imagine if your eyes were unreliable.
Pretend if you can, that your eyes would stop working every so often at random moments without any warning.

How dangerous would that be ?

Reliability has a great deal to do with future expectations.
We test things over and over again so that we can understand how something will perform over time.
Those tests are all physical tests done in a physical world within a physical reality.

Please explain how to test a physical object without performing any real world physical tests ?

[bennyboy]

I wouldn't know, Camus and I are are having a discussion about it, but there's nothing preventing a person from using the method on their intuitions, and intuition may be based on empirical observation, itself.  What we have been able to agree on, at least I think...is that even if intuition were distinct from empirical observation and capable of being a basis for knowledge...that just like empirical observation...it is in itself suspect on well established grounds and requiring some method of winnowing down false hits.

A science of mind might be a very personal thing, and there have in fact been schools of psychology based on introspection. However, science as we normally mean today it does not include personal insight.

Case in point, we have done scientific research on buddhist (and broadly) meditations claims, as well as a whole range of alleged insights and intuitions.  Their consistent dual failure to produce results or establish themselves as other than empirical is why both sets of claims have been abandoned by all but the most credulous researchers.  Don't get me wrong, more power to the folks who keep beating their heads against that wall.  They could always discover something tomorrow, just like the sun may not rise tomorrow.

The Buddhists know the territory of mind particularly well, and I'd point to the Tibetan tradition of meditation as the best case in point. Now, you might not agree with their source attributions, but they know truths about what this or that state of mind is like and how to achieve it unlike anyone, including scientists.

Even if you don't agree that this is true, there is a whole category of questions which science cannot answer-- those about qualia.
What is it like to taste chocolate?
What is it like to watch the sun rise after sleeping on a park bench in the middle of winter?
What is it like not to have the answer to a question, and then have the answer enter into your awareness, fully-formed?

Science can talk around these questions, but cannot answer them. Knowledge of what things are like is in the experience of them, not in descriptions of brain function about them.

[LadyForCamus]

It's a good question, isn't it?  We find ourselves facing the same question with empirical knowledge.  How can we distinguish between accurate and inaccurate intuition, how can we distinguish between accurate and inaccurate sense experience?  Most would offer deduction in either case...or any of a number of other methodological ways of organizing our thoughts.     

Describing accurate intuition as a lucky guess leaves open the door for accurate sense experience to be, equally, a lucky guess.  I could, after all, look to my left and see a fairy outside the window.  I'm lucky that I don't..because if I did, then I would very likely be wrong about the issue of whether or not fairies are outside my window.  Ultimately, this weakest form of the other than empirical doesn't posit that we are or can be certain, that it will always be possible to distinguish between accurate intuitions -or- accurate experiences and inaccurate ones, it doesn't even make the claim that intuition is the foundation of all knowledge, or that a nominally rational person would have to accept a conclusion derived from intuition....it merely seeks to add intuition to the possible sources of knowledge.  It only establishes, if accepted, that the claim of empiricism is wrong.

I've been thinking about this intuition thing. It's totally bologna, lol. What is intuition in the first place? It's an unconscious assessment of empirical data, expressed as an innate, informed sense.  Without sense experience, there is no information, and so there couldn't be intuition.  Empiricism is the platform off of which intuition takes its leap. Sure, maybe its a "back of the house" assessment, like you said, but its still an assessment. That it feels different is irrelevant, and as you said, we use the same methods to distinguish between good/bad intuition and good/bad sense experience.  That's because they're essentially the same thing.  Giving something a different label doesn't magically transform it into something other than exactly what it is.


 

Innate knowledge.  The notion that there are some concepts known to us as a consequence of our rational nature.  You mention above that you've surveyed a long list of individual empirical instances of knowledge in order to arrive at the conclusion of your flakiness.  We've already discussed, however, that no number of individual instances of empirical knowledge can support a necessary truth in and of themselves.  You aren't necessarily flaky on account of those observations.  The classic example is that watching the sun rise a thousand times won't make it necessarily true that the sun rises tomorrow.  

So, how do we rescue necessary truth, and how do we contextualize what we take to be true in light of that?  Perhaps, instead of arriving at the conclusion that you are flaky, that flakiness exists, based on observation, you have an innate concept of flakiness, and every individual instance of empirical observation allows you to recognize some action as a representative of that concept?  If this were the case, then innate knowledge would be the foundation, and empirical observation would be additional verifying information.  We might say, "ah, but someone explained what flakiness was, to me" - and sure...but just as before, their having explained it to you might have done little more than provide you with the vernacular for some concept you already held.  "Ah, "flakiness", we say to ourselves...that's what we call this thing I am !".

What is an example of a concept we could have innate knowledge about in the absence of any empirical, sensory input?

This could place some knowledge, like knowledge of self, in the category of a priori knowledge.  Independent of sense experience... perhaps, even, the basis -of- sense experience.

How could I know that I exist without having a subjective experience first?

[Cecelia]

Topic Title is technically correct. A lack of reasoning on the part of theists does in fact justify non-belief.