Are theists and atheists epistemic peers?

I don't see that I do so.

To me, it just doesn't seem like I believe in God or any of the things you mention.
We are probably operating out of different notions of "belief (in God)" .

 

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What should two people - who presume each other to be epistemic peers - do when they find they disagree about some important issue?

What, in your opinion, are the options in such a situation?


Presuming that the two are not epistemic peers seems like a quick and easy enough solution - and the discussion is promptly over.
But upon disagreement, readily presuming one isn't epistemic peers with others can also quickly lead to isolation (and the problems of effectual solipsism).

 

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I don't think it is about "do as told". I think it's about defaulting to goodwill.
When someone makes claims we don't understand, we tend to default to goodwill, which means we will accept the possibility that what they say is true or even believe it is true.

The other two options are neutrality and ill will. Neutrality isn't really possible, and ill will we tend to avoid for our own sake.

Defaulting to goodwill can and does backfire, of course. When that happens, we say we have been naive.


But perhaps there is also a fourth option: We maintain our own narrative, and strongly, so that (in our mind) it usually overrides the relevance of other people's claims.

 

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But almost all of your questions/arguments seem to be built upon such premises, so much so that it is only natural for others to conclude that you are indeed a theist, albeit an agnostic one (functionally rather than philosophically) who hasn't yet found a home. This is especially the case when you defend the legitimacy of those questions/arguments (and in particular the premises they are built on) with such tenacity. It certainly doesn't make you look purely agnostic.

Regardless of how you see yourself, it's probably important that you understand how other people here see you (with regard to your philosophical position) so you can, perhaps, work to correct the misconception and thereby create circumstances that are more favourable to fruitful discussion. In other words, if everyone knows a little more about what Signal actually believes (or doesn't believe) then we can all communicate with Signal more effectively

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Each tries to convince the other, I guess. People are often pursuaded in everyday disputes. Or they ignore each other. Or they agree to disagree. Or perhaps they battle endlessly and pointlessly, like we see in some Sciforums threads.

Sure, with the lesser individual bending a knee to the superior one and accepting whatever the revelation is supposed to be.

You are arguing for simple credulity here, Signal. You are demanding that atheists and agnostics shut the fuck up, just accept (with no visible justification) that "theists" are the authorities in religious matters, their epistemological superiors, and that non-believers simply believe whatever they are told by those who are supposedly in an infinitely better position to know.

Good luck getting that one to fly.

 

Theist "end of day" jargon, meaning, the sun is extinguished by the sea.

Meanwhile, simultaneously somewhere else, others are having a morning.

 

I seem to be stuck in the fire between theists and atheists.

The theists here generally consider me an atheist, or at least an agnostic.

The atheists here generally consider me a theist, or at least an agnostic theist.


I have been trying to correct the misperceptions, but it doesn't really seem to lead to any clarity.

Myself, I just get involved in discussions, and reply in whatever way my interest is awakened.

Why would I have to be placed in one camp or the other, under one label or another?

Other people seem to have a bigger problem with my not fitting into a box than I myself do.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, said Emerson.

 

You really need to stop putting words into my mouth.

 

it is easier to devalue/invalidate a person if they are pigeonholed into a specific group of ppl.( oh, your just a <insert group here>)
(i do not think i need to obsess on the word 'just', right now..)

 

Signal, Nice Rothko!

Anyway, why would you need to escape the brain? If you think we are going to learn anything without using it, that will be a little tricky. Think of yourself in a prison cell, knocking on the pipes to see the effect. If you hear knocking back you get to figure out whether it is the pipes creaking from expansion/contraction, rats on them or a intelligence sending back signals, etc. All you have are the sounds you hear, but you postulate the cause and test it. If they don't match your rhythm or send back Morris Code, then it's probably not human. But doubting the existence or the sound of the sounds won't really help.

 

How do you propose to escape the brain in a vat scenario?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat

 

Well said, and in response to "you are assuming God as a magic genie to grant your every wish." I'd settle for ONE wish. But it would have to be granted in a way that couldn't be explained in the normal course by other processes or mechanisms. It would have to be a supernatural event. Otherwise it is just unverifiable parallelism.

 

why?
why can't God work within the laws of physics?
he created them..why would he create a system that he could not work in?

why does it have to be supernatural?
so you would have no choice but to believe?

and 'unverifiable' is in the eye of the beholder..

 

Exactly.
Why should a theistic and a non-theistic explanation have to be mutually exclusive?

Why would it have to be a dichotomy like "Either God created the world, or the world came about in the Big Bang"? Why couldn't God make the Big Bang?

 

Ok, sorry. That must be technical term that is newer than 1978.

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Ok, the answer is essentially the same and we are just talking about the degree of difficulty. First, if you start out assuming your programmer is perfect and can't be outthought, then you have set up an unrealistic unverifiable hypothesis. It is unrealistic because no programmer is that smart. In other words, while it is theoretically possible to make all the impulses to the brain match those of the world you happen to be banging around in at the moment, when the brain decides to build the Star Trek enterprise and boldly go somewhere the computer hasn't been programed with, you are going to have the "Truman Show" problem. "We couldn't predict the dumb ass was going to try THAT." So I think some of us could rig some tests (experiences) up that nobody to anticipate, and then our experiences wouldn't jive, and we could figure out the limits of the computer's abilities, and that were weren't getting the straight dope. And of course, the old stand by is Occam's razor. If the computer was indeed perfect (no way) but if it was, then we don't need to postulate it. It is a lot simpler and much more convincing that we are interacting directly with the world rather than indirectly through a computer and some guy. That's lot of effort to go to to fool one brain. How long would they keep it up, and why? Experiments don't usually get funded "forever". It's just to hard to make that hypothesis seem reasonable or possible. Is that perfect knowledge? No. But I dare you to show me some of that, and a tautological definition gizmo won't work.

You better hope the site where your computer is never has severe weather, earthquakes, floods, lightning strikes etc. We might figure that out two when the "lights" go out for nothing.

 

If HE caused it, then that other mechanism didn't. That's the difference. One guy hit the cue ball or the other guy did. They are in each other's way if they do it simultaneously. Otherwise you are again talking about redundant unnecessary "explanations" where the one that is the hardest to believe or the less useful gets pitched. And then there's Occam's Razor if you again make the two explanations perfectly equivalent and indistinguishable so as to be unverifiable.

 

'yes it is' vs 'no it's not'?

this assumes God cannot utilize your perspective to influence events,
IOW it assumes they are in each others way,

is the one that is the most simple.

as far as i know, they have not verified how the big bang blew.
they have analyzed everything after the initial bang, but nothing about the actual bang..

 

Well, if we can't agree on what constitutes an inherently unverifiable hypothesis. The debate is pretty well over. Everyone can just believe what they want, and see how it turns out. I don't think leaning on the supernatural for physical nourishment, protection, comfort, power, control etc. etc. will be that rewarding. And if you just use it to feel better, there's always Xanax.

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"as far as i know, they have not verified how the big bang blew.
they have analyzed everything after the initial bang, but nothing about the actual bang."

I think that's right. And moving into RANK speculation here, as I am no physicist, I have always thought the mistake they were making was picturing the singularity as a static or steady state, rather than just the point at which it got to it's smallest point before rebounding. That just makes a lot more sense to me.

 

"this assumes God cannot utilize your perspective to influence events,
IOW it assumes they are in each others way,"

How does he "influence" the ball. Does his input not add to or differ from the other guy striking the ball in any way? If not, what influence did he have? If so, where would the ball have gone if the other guy was the only hitter? There have to be effects. And they have to have an effect. You have got to be able to spot those effects if they actually happened.