2,657 thoughts on “Elon Musk Thinks Evolution is Bullshit.”

  1. walto: I know that anything that is a God has to be it, and I know that logic/truth aren’t the right sort of things to be worthy of worship.

    Just last week you felt protective of logic and was upset because you thought that I had insulted him.

    I’ve seen you wax eloquently about him in fact I think you have dedicated a good portion of your life to the study and teaching of logic.

    I expect that it would not take much to incline you to worship if it did not mean that you would be forced to give up some autonomy.

    I do think it would take divine Grace to ensure you did not turn that worship into idolatry by introducing your own misconceptions and imagining while ignoring God’s self revelation.

    peace

  2. fifthmonarchyman: A core tenant of presuppositionalism is the reality that when it comes to questions about God we really have no common ground with which to communicate.

    There is really nothing I can do except point out the inconsistency of your position and hope that God will see fit to enlighten you.

    Which would be fine, except that you have no idea what my position is, you’ve shown no ability to learn despite how often it’s been explained to you, and you lack the basic reasoning skills necessary to detect an inconsistency.

    That is why I would for the most part rather discuss other things

    As would I, but every discussion you’re part of becomes the endless parade of presuppositionalist nonsense and everyone else gets sucked into it.

    I’ll be putting you on ignore for a while.

    That does not mean that this sort of of discussion has no value at all. It gives God glory and perhaps provides comfort to lurkers that they are not alone and there is always the possibility that God might choose to use something I say to tweak your conscience.

    peace

    It’s also extremely annoying to everyone else. I’m sure that’s a positive in your book as well.

  3. keiths: For the third time: you don’t need to assign a numerical probability in order to assess the likelihood of something.

    Argument by repetition! Irrefutable!

  4. No, Alan. The argument stands on its own, without repetition.

    The repetition is intended to help walto get it, finally.

  5. Kantian Naturalist: Which would be fine, except that you have no idea what my position is, you’ve shown no ability to learn despite how often it’s been explained to you, and you lack the basic reasoning skills necessary to detect an inconsistency.

    When you present your position I ask questions. Often this annoys you,

    I ask you to clarify what you mean. Often this annoys you

    I listen while you interact with others to see if they see the same flaws as I do. When they do it seems to annoy you

    I can’t help but detect a pattern.

    It’s possible even likely that your position is only fully understandable by you. If this is the case it is of no value to anyone else.

    One of the good things about relying on God for knowledge is that he has the ability to communicate accurately even if I’m not the brightest bulb in the pack

    Kantian Naturalist: As would I, but every discussion you’re part of becomes the endless parade of presuppositionalist nonsense and everyone else gets sucked into it.

    There is no reason for this. If you don’t want to discuss God you don’t have to. Just don’t presume that your anti-christian presuppositions are valid by default and we will get along just fine

    Kantian Naturalist: It’s also extremely annoying to everyone else.

    It’s just as annoying if not more so to have to constantly hear the arrogant mocking of all that I hold dear from folks who don’t seem to have a clue about what they presume to be talking about.

    Unfortunately it’s the hand we have been dealt. You can’t expect soothing harmony when we are beginning from radically contradictory starting points.

    Kantian Naturalist: I’ll be putting you on ignore for a while.

    That is really a shame. I enjoy what you have to say when you are not mocking God. I take you to be a nice guy and I think we could have a good conversation sitting on the front porch with a lemonade

    I would like to continue to interact with you if only because you aren’t so quick to resort to cursing as some others here.

    It’s especially sad that I think you are only now beginning to understand where I’m coming from when I talk about God being necessary and that there are no atheists.

    regardless putting me on ignore just puts off the inevitable

    You are going to have to figure out how you deal with Christians eventually who won’t just sit back quietly and allow you spew hatred of God with out responding.

    peace

  6. keiths:
    No, Alan.The argument stands on its own, without repetition.

    I think you are wrong when you say “assess”. Claiming probabilities of future outcomes without information is fortune-telling.

    The repetition is intended to help walto get it, finally.

    O’rly? You may possibly believe this but if you do you are mistaken.

  8. fifthmonarchyman: Rumraket: How do you know the simulation programmers didn’t write the Bible?

    Because God is the author of the Bible but in another sense it was written by folks like Paul and I know that Paul is not a programmer

    That is just a repetition of the claim, not an explanation for HOW you know it.

    How do you know god is the author I ask, and you respond that it’s becuase god is the author. That’s what I’m asking you to prove. You just typing the claim into the post is not a proof.

    Also, obviously, the programmers could have simply simulated the character you know as “Paul”. Heck, they could even have lied and just written anything supposedly by Paul themselves. How do you know they didn’t?

    fifthmonarchyman: Rumraket: I’m not impressed by that kind of language.

    Why should your feelings about it matter?

    Because your response had no basis in fact or evidence, it was just some strange quasi-emotional blather about “judging” god or what is possible. Telling me I don’t have some kind of authority to question the things I do is worth nothing more than being ignored. If you don’t wish to justify your beliefs that is your prerogative. I’m not going to try to force you.

    fifthmonarchyman: God exists necessarily

    Rumraket “Why?”Because he is God. This is not rocket science

    That does not explain anything. It isn’t even an answer to my question. God necessarily exists because he is god, is your answer. I can only ask again, why?

    fifthmonarchyman: Rumraket: I don’t need to be “in charge”, whatever you mean by that, to want to have good, logically coherent reasons for believing certain propositions to be true.

    Why are your desires all that matter here. Is everything about you??

    My desires are not all that matter here, and everything is not about me. In fact it’s more about you. You seem to be laboring under a misapprehension about justifications for your beliefs. Your claims are grandiose in the extreme, but your justifications are nonexistent.

    I do have one way in which I’m personally involved in this: I have hope that you can come to understand what I have come to understand. I have hope that you can learn logic. Turns out I’m a hopeful guy and I genuinely care for other people, including you.

    fifthmonarchyman: Rumraket: I’m not interested in anything else from you than an admission your position is based on nothing more than unsupported faith.

    Spoken like someone who thinks they are in charge and have the authority to make demands on everyone else. Is that how you feel?

    Again you speak in terms I don’t reconize. To me these are not matters of authority or leadership. My “demands” are requests. You can simply refuse them and move on if you so please.

    They are matters of truth, fact, logic and epistemology. I’m trying to help you do philosophy. I’m no hotshot at this by any stretch, but I can usually spot a basic fallacy when I see one. I’m amazed that you can not, so I want to try to help you with that.

    fifthmonarchyman: Rumraket: As soon as you concede that you don’t have any reasons based in logic or evidence for believing the things you do I will be satisfied.

    Why should anyone else be concerned about your personal satisfaction?

    Should? Maybe they shouldn’t, but if you don’t want to show you have a rational defense of your position, then just say so.

    fifthmonarchyman: If your satisfaction is dependent on the actions of other human beings you need to prepare for a lifetime of disappointment

    Okay, I now consider myself prepared. Will you start correctly using logic now?

    Have a nice weekend.

  9. walto: .I’m still waiting for probability estimates of the stuff you think you know.

    Here is how I understand that probability could be said to be involved in justification and so in knowledge.

    We get new knowledge from perception, testimony, memory, or reasoning. Of these, I think only reasoning could directly involve probability, and only in some cases and according to some interpretations of how reasoning works in those cases.

    Reasoning can be deductive, inductive, or abductive (that is, inference to best explanation).
    – Deductive reasoning does not involve probability.
    – On some approaches, inductive reasoning involves frequentiest probability; on some others, Bayesian; on still other approaches inductive reasoning does not involve probability at all.
    – Abductive reasoning can include assessing alternative explanations by comparing Bayesian posterior likelihoods, but it also involves non-probabilistic components of alternative explanations such as their simplicity, fecundity, unification.

    But we need not stop at the direct justification for knowledge. We can take the argument further and ask why we should rely on a particular case of memory or perception or testimony.

    Unless we are foundationalists and the beliefs in question are our foundational beliefs*, it seems we have to use reasoning to explain why we these these particular cases are justified.
    – If we are reliabilists about justification, reasoning would be needed to explain why the mechanism is reliable in that circumstance.
    – If we are take an internalist approach to justification, reasoning is needed to explain why the mental state of knowledge follows from other states of knowledge.

    In either case, part of that reasoning might involve other knowledge itself based on testimony, memory, or perception, but reasoning is still needed to relate the pieces of knowledge. That reasoning could involve probability if it is abductive or inductive

    In summary: reasoning is sometimes directly involved in the justification for knowledge and that reasoning uses probability for cases where the reasoning is inductive or abductive, at least according to some interpretations of these forms of reasoning. Furthermore, if we are pressed to explain the full justification chain of a particular piece of knowledge in terms of either its reliability or its relation to other beliefs, then reasoning is always involved (unless we are foundationalists and this is a foundational piece of knowledge).

    ETA: I avoided the word “likely”, as I think it could be taken in two ways (1) more probable or (2) favored by a proposed line of reasoning (which may or may not involve probability)
    —————————–
    * If our foundational beliefs are taken to be self-evident, then explaining that self-evidence could involve reasoning, but not the type of reasoning that uses probability.

  10. Alan Fox: I think you are wrong when you say “assess”. Claiming probabilities of future outcomes without information is fortune-telling.

    O’rly? You may possibly believe this but if you do you are mistaken.

    What I think Keiths is failing to see is this. If he were right that it’s justification that requires a certain likelihood or subjective probability and not, as I claim, belief, then THIS would be ok:

    “I believe that I’m sitting but I think it’s unlikely that I’m sitting.”

    But that’s obviously NOT ok. So I conclude that the feature he’s noticing about likelihood and knowledge is not a function of the role of justification in knowing, but has to do with what it means to believe something.

    As I said this feature is tantamount to Moore’s pseudo-paradox regarding assertions of belief. Justification is another matter entirely.

  11. fifthmonarchyman:

    No one but you makes the claim that atheists don’t exist. It is never the topic of a discussion until you bring it up.

    I’m never bring it up except in response to claims implied or otherwise that atheists do exist.

    In other words, given the fact that many participants here are atheists and discuss issues related to atheism, you’re planning to derail nearly every thread in this forum.

  12. fifthmonarchyman:

    Rumraket: As soon as you concede that you don’t have any reasons based in logic or evidence for believing the things you do I will be satisfied.

    Why should anyone else be concerned about your personal satisfaction?

    I read Rumraket as simply asking for honesty. You make a lot of claims about your god and related beliefs but never support them with anything but “Revelation! Revelation! Revelation!” when challenged. If you admit that you hold those beliefs solely due to faith, without logic or evidence, then a lot of this discussion will die down. That would let you get on with the topics you claim you want to discuss.

  13. fifthmonarchyman:

    I was raised in the Congregationalist church.

    This explains a lot

    Apparently you are constantly trying to tear down the straw-man version of God you think you learned about when you were a young child.

    No, because unlike you I am able to consider ideas other than those with which I’ve been indoctrinated. I’ve read about and discussed with adherents a variety of religions and god concepts. Thus far none have been supported by any objective, empirical evidence.

    FYI
    God is not like that at all. Until you understand that what you rejected is not what I’m talking about you we will never be able to have a meaningful conversation about this stuff.

    Until you start making coherent points a meaningful conversation is impossible. All you have is bumper sticker theology: “The bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.”

  14. BruceS: Here is how I understand that probability could be said to be involved in justification and so in knowledge.

    Weget new knowledge from perception, testimony, memory, or reasoning.Of these, I think only reasoning could directly involve probability, and only in some cases and according to some interpretations of how reasoning works in those cases.

    Reasoning can be deductive, inductive, or abductive (that is, inference to best explanation).
    – Deductive reasoning does not involve probability.
    – On some approaches, inductive reasoning involves frequentiest probability; on some others, Bayesian; on still other approaches inductive reasoning does not involve probability at all.
    – Abductive reasoning can include assessing alternative explanations by comparing Bayesian posterior likelihoods, but it also involves non-probabilistic components of alternative explanations such as their simplicity, fecundity, unification.

    But we need not stop at the direct justification for knowledge.We can take the argument further and ask why we should rely on a particular case of memory or perception or testimony.

    Unless we are foundationalists and the beliefs in question are our foundational beliefs*, it seems we have to use reasoning to explain why we these these particular cases are justified.
    –If we are reliabilists about justification, reasoning would be needed to explain why the mechanism is reliable in that circumstance.
    –If we are take an internalist approach to justification, reasoning is needed to explain why the mental state of knowledge follows from other states of knowledge.

    In either case, part of that reasoning might involve other knowledge itself basedon testimony, memory, or perception, but reasoning is still needed to relate the pieces of knowledge.That reasoning could involve probability if it is abductive or inductive

    In summary:reasoning is sometimes directly involved in the justification forknowledge and that reasoning uses probability for cases where the reasoning is inductive or abductive, at least according to some interpretations of these forms of reasoning.Furthermore, if we are pressed to explain the full justification chain of a particular piece of knowledge in terms of either its reliability or its relation to other beliefs, then reasoning is always involved (unless we are foundationalists and this is a foundational piece of knowledge).

    ETA:I avoided the word “likely”, as I think it could be taken in two ways (1) more probable or (2) favored by a proposed line of reasoning (which may or may not involve probability)
    —————————–
    * If our foundational beliefs are taken to be self-evident, then explaining that self-evidence could involve reasoning, but not the type of reasoning that uses probability.

    That’s a very thoughtful post which I’d like to spend more time thinking about, Bruce. So thanks. The only thing I’ll say here is that I AM a foundationalist — or at least a ‘foundherentist’ — with respect to justification, so i’d take that route out of SOME of what you say above. A lot of it seems right to me on first read anyhow.

    You should have studied philosophy in school, man! You’d have been killer. Incidentally, one of the only three or four Hallians in history, Charles Ripley, studied at U of Western Ontario and taught someplace in Canada (Lakeland? Lakehead?–I’d have to look it up). And he was a mid-career switch, like you!

  15. fifthmonarchyman:
    . . .
    You are going to have to figure out how you deal with Christians eventually who won’t just sit back quietly and allow you spew hatred of God with out responding.

    I have’t seen anyone here spewing hatred, although Sal seems to think the god he believes in is a bit of a bastard. Many of us simply don’t share your beliefs (and you’ve given no reason to do so). No hatred, just apathy.

  16. fifthmonarchyman: Robin: Point is, there will be no one who even thinks he or she is an atheist. There will be no one with any opinions about anything; everyone will think, act, and do exactly the same thing. Nothing more, nothing less, than robotics.

    If that is what I thought it would be like I would still be a rebel just like you.

    You need to read more 😉

    That’s irony, right?

    John 14:26King James Version (KJV)

    26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

    Of the two of us, I’m not the one who has demonstrated a lack of reading and thinking…

    Do tell, why will there be any intertubes in the afterlife for you if your holy ghost has already revealed all the important stuff?

    Of course, there may well be things that God does not reveal:

    “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29: 29).

    But then you won’t find those on the Intertubes anyway. It’s pretty apparent you don’t know what your own theology sez about your supposed afterlife. You’ll be a powerless worshipper, nothing more.

  18. walto taught someplace in Canada (Lakeland? Lakehead?–I’d have to look it up). And he was a mid-career switch, like you!

    Not sure about “mid-career” since I am more than five years beyond end of career (which admittedly was in my mid fifties). But I have voluntarily chosen to pursue philopause at the end of my career (see post in evolution of consciousness thread).

    With regard to formal study, the days when I had the self discipline to do what a teacher or boss said are gone. Good riddance to that self-discipline. Unless… Hilllary gets indicted and quits, Bernie burns out, and the stock market collapses permanently after Trump wins, which means no more retirement for me.

    There is a Canadian Lakehead university. The main campus is in the Canadian city Thunder Bay, which is near Duluth Minnesota (or at least as near as cities get in that neck of the woods). There is a second campus in Orillia, which is considered cottage country for Toronto residents (by them, if not the Orillians). That would be a nice place to be a paid professor, I suspect.

  19. I guess it was Lakehead University. Dunno which campus though. I think I saw an obit for Ripley on-line at one point.

    A few years back, I got his dissertation from Western Ontario and it was so good that I wanted to publish some or all of it, so I tried to find his heirs for permission to do so. Talked to some former colleagues at Lakehead; even contacted the funeral home that buried him, but in the end I couldn’t find them, so I gave up.

  20. Patrick: I read Rumraket as simply asking for honesty.

    I just wanted to concur here. I think Rumraket’s posts on this thread have been very good. Extremely thorough and patient too–the guy doesn’t get pissed off and prickly the way a lot of us do. Admirable.

  21. walto: What I think Keiths is failing to see is this. If he were right that it’s justification that requires a certain likelihood or subjective probability and not, as I claim, belief, then THIS would be ok:

    “I believe that I’m sitting but I think it’s unlikely that I’m sitting.”

    But that’s obviously NOT ok. So I conclude that the feature he’s noticing about likelihood and knowledge is not a function of the role of justification in knowing, but has to do with what it means to believe something.

    As I said this feature is tantamount to Moore’s pseudo-paradox regarding assertions of belief. Justification is another matter entirely.

    I shouldn’t have butted in. If justification is what you can do to confirm belief, I’m in favour. Nonsense about probabilities, not so much. When or if you can’t know all possible outcomes for a future event, you have the Sherlock Holmes fallacy.

  22. Alan Fox: I shouldn’t have butted in. If justification is what you can do to confirm belief, I’m in favour. Nonsense about probabilities, not so much. When or if you can’t know all possible outcomes for a future event, you have the Sherlock Holmes fallacy.

    I THINK that fallacy may be relevant to what I’m saying. KN too. So I’m glad you “butted in”!

  23. BruceS,

    I second walto’s appreciation here. That’s a really excellent post. For the sake of TSZ, I hope Trump doesn’t win — we can’t afford to lose you!

    I’m probably a “foundherentist” of some variety, though I haven’t sat down and worked through the similarities and differences between Haack and Michael Williams (a very fine Sellarsian epistemologist).

    I like your point about the role of reasoning in justification, even the case of vindicating non-inferential beliefs such as perceptual judgments or memories.

    On my non-foundationalist version of things, since I want to appeal to cognitive science to explain why perceptual takings are reliable to the extent that they are and also why they are not reliable to the extent that they are, the reasoning used by cognitive scientists carries a great deal of justificatory work.

    That is, on my roughly Peircean view of science, a collective, social, and historical process — we’re constantly revising and modifying our inherited theories in light of new discoveries, and passing on our modifications to those who will come after us and reject and revise our insights. Being a Peircean about cognitive science means that we are constantly revising and modifying our understanding about how we understand. There’s a hermeneutic or self-reflexive dimension to cog sci that’s really important to appreciate

    Now that I think about it, I think that probability (and probability theory) must play an important role in theory choice — after all, why else are p-values important?

    However, while probability does thereby play an indispensable role in our empirical confirmed models of the causal processes underpinning our understanding, that doesn’t mean that I need to have an assessment of those probabilities when I qua epistemic agent engage in normative practices of exchanging reasons. The personal/subpersonal distinction kicks in here.

    So while I think assessment of probabilities is necessary for explaining our epistemic activities, I’m less confident that assessment of probabilities is necessary for engaging in those epistemic activities.

  25. Alan Fox: . When or if you can’t know all possible outcomes for a future event, you have the Sherlock Holmes fallacy.

    The frequentist issue sounds similar to what Hume pointed out. If you don’t want to make the assumptions frequentists make to finesse his problem of induction in one of its forms, Revered Bayes has you covered.

  26. A story related to me, thought to be approximately correct.

    An English couple were enjoying a relaxed motoring holiday in France, staying at quiet logis exploring the byways and enjoying the space and calm. They were driving slowly and carefully along a country lane when a car came hurtling round the corner and crashed into them. The driver emerged and indignantly berated them. They managed to understand that he was complaining he had been driving this route for twenty years and there had never been anyone else on the road before.

    So much for probability!

  27. Kantian Naturalist: I second walto’s appreciation here. That’s a really excellent post. For the sake of TSZ, I hope Trump doesn’t win — we can’t afford to lose you!

    Thirded! 😉

  28. Kantian Naturalist: …we’re constantly revising and modifying our inherited theories in light of new discoveries, and passing on our modifications to those who will come after us and reject and revise our insights.

    Indeed! The ability to supplement memory and shared experience with recording, storing and retrieval of information was key to the explosion of “success” of the human species.

  29. Alan:

    An English couple were enjoying a relaxed motoring holiday in France, staying at quiet logis exploring the byways and enjoying the space and calm. They were driving slowly and carefully along a country lane when a car came hurtling round the corner and crashed into them. The driver emerged and indignantly berated them. They managed to understand that he was complaining he had been driving this route for twenty years and there had never been anyone else on the road before.

    So much for probability!

    Poor reasoning on the part of the driver, but hardly an indictment of the concept of probability.

    Bruce, to Alan:

    If you don’t want to make the assumptions frequentists make to finesse his problem of induction in one of its forms, Revered Bayes has you covered.

    I hope Alan has taken your hint and is off reading about Bayesian reasoning.

  30. walto:

    fifthmonarchyman [to keiths]: Right now you are doing a good job of pointing out the inconsistency in walto’s position later on I expect him to do the same for yours.

    That’s wrong too.

    A sign that keiths is almost certainly wrong here is that keiths is asserting something fifthmonarchyman admires as a “good job”.

    OF course it’s possible that when Dumb says “X”and Dumber says “Good job about X, Dumb” that they have coincidentally happened to hit on something that’s actually smart and correct.

    But probability is no, they’re just being mistaken together.

  31. keiths: I hope Alan has taken your hint and is off reading about Bayesian reasoning.

    Do you? Srsly?

    ETA

    Srsly, would you have a link to an explanation how Bayes theorem deals with overlooked possibilities?

  32. Alan Fox:

    keiths: For the third time: you don’t need to assign a numerical probability in order to assess the likelihood of something.

    Argument by repetition! Irrefutable!

    🙂 🙂

  33. walto: That’s call anthropomorphism. It’s just a metaphor, man.

    Like I said this will always come down to the question of other minds. You can’t fathom how the Logos could be a person. I know he is a person because I’ve met him. We could discuss this forever and you would never see what I’m talking about unless and until you do the same.

    There is just no empirical or logical test for discerning other minds but you know one when you meet one

    peace

  34. Rumraket: That’s what I’m asking you to prove.

    You don’t prove God’s existence.
    God’s existence is the only reason you can prove anything whatsoever.

    Besides you already know God exists

    Rumraket: My “demands” are requests. You can simply refuse them and move on if you so please.

    good that is what I will do then

    Rumraket: They are matters of truth, fact, logic and epistemology.

    Then they presuppose the existence of the Christian God. I guess my work here is done

    😉

    You have a nice weekend as well

    peace

  35. walto,

    What I think Keiths is failing to see is this. If he were right that it’s justification that requires a certain likelihood or subjective probability and not, as I claim, belief…

    Those aren’t mutually exclusive. The fact that knowledge depends on justification doesn’t mean that belief can’t (or shouldn’t) depend on it also.

    …then THIS would be ok:

    “I believe that I’m sitting but I think it’s unlikely that I’m sitting.”

    The belief is unjustified in that case, just as the knowledge claim is unjustified in exchange #1:

    Exchange #1:

    Xavier: Do you believe X?

    Yolanda: I not only believe X, I know it.

    Xavier: How likely is it that X is true?

    Yolanda: Extremely unlikely.

  36. Patrick: In other words, given the fact that many participants here are atheists and discuss issues related to atheism, you’re planning to derail nearly every thread in this forum.

    It’s not derailment. It’s an attempt to put the already derailed train back on track

    peace

  37. fifthmonarchyman: regardless putting me on ignore just puts off the inevitable

    You are going to have to figure out how you deal with Christians eventually who won’t just sit back quietly and allow you spew hatred of God with out responding.

    Or we can just sit back quietly and allow all you vicious religionists to murder each other in the name of god. As long as US doesn’t get Trump as president using nuclear weapons in the mideast, I’m completely satisfied with how much you god-lovers all hate each other. Muslims are mostly seen as the villains nowadays but they have a long way to go before they can catch up to the destruction wreaked by christians.

    Yes, I absolutely detest your odious genocidal god.

    What ya gonna do about it, boy? Ya gonna murder me for heresy like all the others your kind have murdered?

    Or are you just going to try to bore me to death with your robot responses?

  38. Hotshoe: How can you really detest FMM’s god if he doesn’t exist? Do you detest Sauron too?

    Anyone: Can you explain FMM’s position to me? How does he know god exists? How does he know there are no atheists? Is there any even slightly coherent claim involved?

  39. hotshoe:

    OF course it’s possible that when Dumb says “X”and Dumber says “Good job about X, Dumb” that they have coincidentally happened to hit on something that’s actually smart and correct.

    But probability is no, they’re just being mistaken together.

    Well, Dumbest, you’re certainly welcome to step in and set me and Dumber straight.

  40. John Harshman:
    Hotshoe: How can you really detest FMM’s god if he doesn’t exist? Do you detest Sauron too?

    Anyone: Can you explain FMM’s position to me? How does he know god exists? How does he know there are no atheists? Is there any even slightly coherent claim involved?

    My understanding is that he claims to know both of those by revelation. Seriously.

  41. Patrick, to John:

    My understanding is that he claims to know both of those by revelation. Seriously.

    And if you ask him how he knows that the purported revelations are genuine, his reply is that God is omnipotent and can impart revelation in such a way that its authenticity cannot be doubted, and that he has done so. Seriously.

    He has no comprehension of the obvious alternative: that, as a fallible human, he has mistaken non-revelation for revelation.

  42. John Harshman: Hotshoe: How can you really detest FMM’s god if he doesn’t exist? Do you detest Sauron too?

    Umm, yeah, that’s exactly how people are supposed to respond to the “villains” as portrayed in literature/drama etc. We’re supposed to hiss and boo.

    If the characters stay flat on the page for you, the author has failed.

    The only thing different about the bible is that the authors (apparently) thought they were writing their god as a hero to be admired, but they disclosed through its actions that it was the supreme villain of the universe.

    If you don’t detest it as a character, fine. If the old stories don’t rouse you in any particular way, that’s not a failing on your part.

    Now, if that god actually did exist as portrayed, and you loved it anyways despite its villainy, then that would be a moral failing on your part.

    Obviously that’s where (I think) all christians are failures as decent human beings, because they do believe that odious character does exist and they love it anyways.

  43. John Harshman:
    Hotshoe: How can you really detest FMM’s god if he doesn’t exist? Do you detest Sauron too?

    Anyone: Can you explain FMM’s position to me? How does he know god exists? How does he know there are no atheists? Is there any even slightly coherent claim involved?

    Because he can type non sequiturs all day long.

    Glen Davidson

  44. John Harshman: Anyone: Can you explain FMM’s position to me? How does he know god exists? How does he know there are no atheists? Is there any even slightly coherent claim involved?

    I find FMM’s own views incoherent. But here’s the basic idea of presuppositionalism (as I understand it).

    The presuppositionalist assumes that it is impossible to establish that the Christian God exists.(This is in contrast both to evidentialism, which purports to establish God on a posteriori grounds, and to Thomism, which purports to establish the existence of God on a priori grounds.) Instead, the presuppositionalist argues that one must assume the Christian God in order for there to be any knowledge at all, whether a priori or a posteriori.

    The central claim is that any epistemological position which does not begin with the Christian God must fall into inconsistency. It does so because if one does not begin with the idea that the universe has a rational order to it, then we cannot explain how we can know anything. If the basic character of the universe is determined by non-rational factors — e.g blind chance — then we cannot account for how (who are results of blind chance) can know anything. Knowledge itself looks like a mere happy accident, without any rational foundation. Indeed, the presuppositionalist would argue, without assuming God we cannot even distinguish between knowledge and non-knowledge. And since we cannot know whether or not we know, skepticism is the only rational recourse. The non-skeptic, non-theist is therefore inconsistent.

    (If this looks like Plantinga’s EAAN, it is probably because they are both Reformed, Neo-Calvinist apologists in the Dutch tradition and share intellectual influences. But Plantinga does not cite Van Til and there is — I have just now learned — even a quarrel with Reformed apologetics between the Van Tilians and the Plantingaians. For more, see here.)

    I have been told that Cornelius Van Til, the originator of presuppositionalism, was motivated by then-current debates between idealism (as represented by Bradley, Bosanquet, McTaggart) and realism. Van Til seems to have thought that any non-Christian metaphysics must lapse into idealism, which is to say that it cannot ground metaphysical realism. I suspect that Van Til thought that idealism is just solipsism writ large. (If so, he’s right about that.)

  45. keiths:
    walto,

    Those aren’t mutually exclusive.The fact that knowledge depends on justification doesn’t mean that belief can’t (or shouldn’t) depend on it also.

    The belief is unjustified in that case, just as the knowledge claim is unjustified in exchange #1:

    You’re missing the point. The knowledge remark is weird (only) BECAUSE the belief remark is weird. Knowledge involves justification and belief.

    ETA: One other point. Belief doesn’t “depend” on justification except causally, sometimes. That is, while one can’t know anything without justification, one can believe things without any. So when there’s “dependence”–like when we come to believe something after hearing more evidence–it’s causal, not conceptual.

  46. Thanks. Presuppositionalism seems incoherent to me, but at least you have explained the incoherent position clearly.
    Kantian Naturalist: The central claim is that any epistemological position which does not begin with the Christian God must fall into inconsistency.

    Why “the Christian God” specifically? Wouldn’t any god, or in fact any organizing force whether an entity or not, work as well?

    Kantian Naturalist: If the basic character of the universe is determined by non-rational factors — e.g blind chance — then we cannot account for how (who are results of blind chance) can know anything.

    How can “non-rational factors” be equated with “blind chance”? Is, for example, natural selection a non-rational factor?

    And is this not circular? God being the source of knowledge and of the validity of reason entails the assumption that God does not lie or deceive and has constructed us to be capable of valid reasoning. How can we know that, other than by assuming its truth? And if so, why can’t we just assume that evolution has done the same thing? This seems to reduce to “God never lies and is always right, and we know this because God says so, and he never lies and is always right”.

    I realize this is not your position; I merely ask if the proponents of Presuppositionalism have answers for these questions.

  47. John Harshman: I realize this is not your position; I merely ask if the proponents of Presuppositionalism have answers for these questions.

    They certainly try. There’s a huge literature on it–in Plantinga’s work alone.

  48. A final point on the likelihood biz.

    “Jones is justified in believing that it will rain tomorrow but he still doesn’t think it’s likely”

    seems perfectly fine. But

    “Jones believes that it will rain tomorrow but he still doesn’t think it’s likely”

    is problematic.

    So, again, the legitimate connection is between BELIEVING something and thinking it’s likely. And since knowledge that p requires belief that p, there is a connection between KNOWING that p and thinking that p is likely. In fact, one entails the other. But this isn’t a function of any necessary connection between justification and probability–its a function of a connection between belief and subjective probability.

  49. walto: They certainly try.There’s a huge literature on it–in Plantinga’s work alone.

    Yes, I ask so I don’t have to wade through it. Give me his best shot.

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