How to beat a presupp at their own game

[vulcanlogician]

He reminds me of that guy in the martial arts class with a ponytail who's into it way more than everybody else.

You know that guy. Doesn't he sound like that guy?

[The Architect Of Fate]

At work.

Just listened to snippets here and there.

Typical erroneous comments sounding quite ignorant. "Dinosaurs are found in the sediments at which they were deposited by the global flood." *Sigh*

No comment of  about just how a global flood also depisits a fine layer of iridium which interestingly seems to separate dinosaurs layers from the more 'Modern' or 'Shallower' sediments containing pretty much only mammals. Nor how such a turbulent event might actually sort animals seperate from heavy metals.

 Well. They, DD, are welcome to their echo chamber. I'll keep randomly searching the Yougoogletubes for vids on science backed up by good, accredited links thanks.

 Cheers.

Or the fact such a flood would not have resulted in the kind of layers we see.

[vulcanlogician]

The justified true belief bit I believe started with Plato, and it's long been known to be inadequate, but it get's the lion's share of what needs to be in a definition of knowledge right.  For a bit about the inadequacy, look into the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem]Gettier problem.

This was fascinating.

Since the source material was so short, I went ahead and waded through it. A bit hard to follow at times, but I think I got the gist. It's still kind of sinking in, so I haven't spent much time considering the possible solutions (the "premises must be true" one is tempting at first glance). But it does appear that justified true belief is an insufficient definition of knowledge.

Have you done any thinking about it? I'm curious what your take is.

[Peebothuhlu]

Peebo, you are always at work!!

Of course there are also those rare posts when  I'm not. 

 

 

Not at work.

[Angrboda]

The justified true belief bit I believe started with Plato, and it's long been known to be inadequate, but it get's the lion's share of what needs to be in a definition of knowledge right.  For a bit about the inadequacy, look into the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem]Gettier problem.

This was fascinating.

Since the source material was so short, I went ahead and waded through it. A bit hard to follow at times, but I think I got the gist. It's still kind of sinking in, so I haven't spent much time considering the possible solutions (the "premises must be true" one is tempting at first glance). But it does appear that justified true belief is an insufficient definition of knowledge.

Have you done any thinking about it? I'm curious what your take is.

No, not really. I've poked at it a bit, but the shit gets really deep, really fast.

[Belacqua]

The justified true belief bit I believe started with Plato, and it's long been known to be inadequate, but it get's the lion's share of what needs to be in a definition of knowledge right.  For a bit about the inadequacy, look into the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem]Gettier problem.

This was fascinating.

Since the source material was so short, I went ahead and waded through it. A bit hard to follow at times, but I think I got the gist. It's still kind of sinking in, so I haven't spent much time considering the possible solutions (the "premises must be true" one is tempting at first glance). But it does appear that justified true belief is an insufficient definition of knowledge.

Have you done any thinking about it? I'm curious what your take is.

I agree with Angrboda about the standard definition covering the "lion's share" of cases. I've never seen a better definition of knowledge than "justified true belief." 

The Gettier cases are more like very careful proofs that in some special circumstances we have to allow for something different. 

I don't think we can expect absolute definitions in philosophy, as are possible in other fields. I mean, water is always H2O, and that can't be different. But we can't hope for that degree of absoluteness in human thought. 

For me the usefulness of "justified true belief" comes when people want to claim a difference between belief and knowledge that isn't warranted. They will say that belief is when other people hold something to be true based on standards that I don't accept, but knowledge is what I hold to be true based on standards that I like. It ignores the fact that anything we hold to be true is based on standards, and may be wrong. 

If knowledge is a subset of belief, then everybody has to be responsible for the justification of what he holds to be true.

[Superjock]

So I had a debate with a Christian presuppositionalist and I don't think I did particularly well. I haven't debated Christians in a while so I'm pretty rusty, but they were trying to poke holes in my naturalistic framework.

He kept insisting that because I don't KNOW everything about gravity that there is nothing in my system that would prevent gravity from operating differently tomorrow. Just because gravity has observable patterns today or yesterday doesn't mean it will be consistent tomorrow or the next, so in my worldview anything can change. What regulates gravity or the laws of physics? What is the absolute etc - so I naturally said that I don't know.

His point was that God is the ground of all things yadda yadda - so I told him that just because I don't know EVERYTHING doesn't mean I don't know ANYTHING, and he, funnily enough said the opposite. Theists.

I seriously need to learn how to deconstruct these theist arguments because I am so weak right now - he then went to Modus Pollens, which I've never even heard of. When asking for evidence for God, he says that God has revealed himself to everyone but as an atheist that I have suppressed the knowledge. No I haven't. That is the Christian line of reasoning - that I just don't WANT there to be a God.

I need to learn how to defend my beliefs.

[Mister Agenda]

You don't know and neither does he. If a God controls everything, THAT's a regime under which the laws of physics can be rewritten at the will of a omnipotent being. If the laws of physics were not constant, they would be touting THAT as evidence for a God; heads they win, tails you lose.

[The Grand Nudger]

If god exists, then he's revealed himself to everyone.
he hasn't revealed himself to everyone
therefore he doesn't exist.

What beliefs do you feel that you'd have to defend? Atheism is characterized and defined by not possessing such beliefs about a single thing.

[Silver]

So I had a debate with a Christian presuppositionalist and I don't think I did particularly well. I haven't debated Christians in a while so I'm pretty rusty, but they were trying to poke holes in my naturalistic framework.

He kept insisting that because I don't KNOW everything about gravity that there is nothing in my system that would prevent gravity from operating differently tomorrow. Just because gravity has observable patterns today or yesterday doesn't mean it will be consistent tomorrow or the next, so in my worldview anything can change. What regulates gravity or the laws of physics? What is the absolute etc - so I naturally said that I don't know.

Sometimes, it's smarter to understand that there is no arguing with idiots like that. He's got this belief in a deity that simply has zero evidence to support its existence, he is making these claims of its existence based merely on his desire for the deity to exist over reason. Gravity persisting as it does is as solid as the sun rising every day. God existing is mere delusion.