God is "dead"

God is not dead, God will never die. All of us will die and our ideas will die and memories of us will die. But God, will always exist.

 

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It's not a fallacious ad hom, though.

As long as we maintain that epistemology has to do with how one knows one knows, epistemology is personal.
It's always a particular person who knows, knows they know, or knows they don't know.
Knowing doesn't take place is some abstract, impersonal, depersonalized space.

So, fortunately or unfortunately, epistemological issues are linked with personal qualities, like humility, pride, envy, courage etc. etc.

This applies regardless whether we're talking about knowledge of mathematics, cooking, or "God."

 

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I've told you and others several times, but you just don't read or don't remember or something.

See my reply above to Syne.

No, it doesn't work that way. These discussions are mostly battles of wills, not thoughts per se. We're not robots who would automatically change their mind as soon as a "better" or "truer" position made contact with our system.

So?

As long as any atheist proposes the supremacy of atheism, this long he or she is making himself or herself liable to justify that self-declared position of authority.

That's just how things work. Whenever someone claims to be better, to know better, then they should be ready to prove they indeed are better, know better.

Hic Rhodos, hic salta.

 

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Exactly.

Anyone making a claim to supremacy should be prepared to evidence this supremacy.

Including to little poo-flinging monkeys!

[Mod note: Ad hominems will not be tolerated.]

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I expect you to cite a credible reference on how "humility, pride, envy, courage etc." are central to epistemology, if you wish to use that argument. That way the debate can focus on a reference rather than the personalities of specific people, or groups, here. Regardless of whether the inference is valid, ad hominems are not an acceptable argument.

 

LOL! I made my point. My scope on theism includes the vast majority of theists, not some minority sliver of the population that can't even define what they mean by God. And no, sheer numbers of believers is no an argument for the truth of a belief. That fallacy is known as argument ad populum.

 

Not all ad hominems are fallacious. There are areas of knowledge where a person's personal qualifications make all the difference in what they can know or not know and whether they can be trusted or not. Religion and spirituality are notable examples of such areas of knowledge.
I recall we agreed on this at least once.


That personal qualities play a role in how one goes about knowing things seems self-evident to me.

But anyway:

Virtue epistemology is a contemporary philosophical approach to epistemology that stresses the importance of intellectual (epistemic) virtues. A distinguishing factor of virtue theories is that they use for the evaluation of knowledge the properties of the persons who hold beliefs in addition to or instead of the properties of propositions and beliefs. Some advocates of virtue epistemology claim to more closely follow what they see as important about virtue ethics, while others see only a looser analogy between virtue in ethics and virtue in epistemology.
Intellectual virtue has been a subject of philosophy since the works of Plato and Aristotle, but virtue epistemology is a development in the contemporary analytic tradition. It is characterized by efforts to solve problems of special concern to modern epistemology, such as justification and reliabilism, by directing attention on the knower as agent in a manner similar to the way virtue ethics focuses on moral agents rather than moral acts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_epistemology


Virtue epistemology from SEP:
Contemporary virtue epistemology (hereafter ‘VE’) is a diverse collection of approaches to epistemology. Two commitments unify them. First, epistemology is a normative discipline. Second, intellectual agents and communities are the primary source of epistemic value and the primary focus of epistemic evaluation.

This entry introduces you to many of the most important results of the contemporary VE research program. These include novel attempts to resolve longstanding disputes, solve perennial problems, and expand epistemology's horizons. In the process it reveals the diversity within VE. Beyond sharing the two unifying commitments mentioned above, its practitioners diverge over the nature of intellectual virtues, which questions to ask, and which methods to use.


My approach are line with virtue epistemology. I'm interested in "novel attempts to resolve longstanding disputes, solve perennial problems, and expand epistemology's horizons; to solve problems of special concern to modern epistemology, such as justification and reliabilism."



Virtue epistemology is nothing new. An emphasis on personal qualities as a prerequisite for knowing things (and acocmplishing things based on said knowledge) has a long standing traditon:

E.g. from the Bhagavad Gita:
O best among the Bhāratas, four kinds of pious men begin to render devotional service unto Me — the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive, and he who is searching for knowledge of the Absolute.


Or from the Buddhists:

This is to be done by one skilled in aims
who wants to break through to the state of peace:
Be capable, upright, & straightforward,
easy to instruct, gentle, & not conceited,
content & easy to support,
with few duties, living lightly,
with peaceful faculties, masterful,
modest, & no greed for supporters.

Do not do the slightest thing
that the wise would later censure.


Or from the Bible:
Matthew 18:3 (NIV)
3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

 

In fact, one can search any of the scriptures of the major religions by key terms for personal qualities (pride, conceit, humility, envy, diligence, etc. etc.) and many of them are in a context explaining an epistemological point.

 

Children are naïve, gullible, submissive, impulsive, and prone to fantasies. Why would anyone idealize them as role models?

 

And? I have already, and repeatedly, given you a definition of god and even said that the numbers would be an appeal to popularity. I have refuted your nonsense about how all theists believe in angels and demons, so as long as there are none making such a claim here, your arguments in that vein moot.

 

Like I said, my reference to theists refers to the vast majority of them, not to some tiny irrelevant band of metaphysicalizing eggheads. So you stand refuted.

 

Where? Give me link to the post. Or is this just a bare assertion?

 

Not to sure whether you are simply pretending to be stupid (and being very good at it) or if you really don't know the answer to this question

The special attributes of children which he would recommend are humility, unworldliness, simplicity, teachableness, - the direct contraries of self-seeking, worldliness, distrust, conceit.

http://biblehub.com/matthew/18-3.htm

[Warning: Ad hominems will not be tolerated.]

 

While I agree that atheists typically seem to lack the capacity to fully appreciate/understand concepts of god, I do not see virtue epistemology as excusing ad hominems. Intellectual virtues are largely a matter of epistemic justification. IOW, once someone has asserted a proposition and doubt has been cast on it, it is that person's responsibility to justify their proposition. It is not the doubter's right to define the intellectual virtues, or lack thereof, employed as justification, any more than it is the atheist's right to define the specific concept of god a theist should justify.

So after much thought, I stand by my previous rebuke of ad hominems. You are free to justify your own epistemic position by asserting your own intellectual virtues, but you are not justified in assuming the virtues, or lack thereof, of another.


As to the general notion that "not all ad hominems are fallacious":

To construe evidentiary invalidation of the denial as evidentiary validation of the original claim is fallacious (on several different bases, including that of argumentum ad hominem) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial​

IOW, even if someone's intellectual virtue is not deemed sufficient epistemic justification, that does not itself refute their proposition. Hence the ad hominem is fallacious. Your primary responsibility is to justify your own propositions.

 

I take it you've never seen a kid in a candy store or watched an older sibling plot the torment of a younger sibling.

 

well when you read MR's interpretation of the idea of "being like children", can you clearly discern whether he is purposely pretending to be stupid (ie answering a question in an obvious incorrect manner to troll a discussion) or if he really thinks that is the purport of the verse?

 

I take it you have never seen young children raised by good parents.

 

I don't read about it in the newspapers everyday, if that's what you mean

the fact that you usually have to wait till they reach adulthood before such an event generally becomes newsworthy would seem to suggest you are again grasping at straws

 

There is no accounting for the limitations of a person's own experience, but a solely negative experience with children does not imply stupidity, pretense or not. One might also suppose that those, whose lifestyles do not lend themselves to procreation, may lack a natural affinity for children as well.

It would seem to reflect more on one's attitude towards children than the verse.

 

But the notion has found itself into common english usage:

child·like (chldlk)
adj.
Like or befitting a child, as in innocence, trustfulness, or candor.


so you have to ask yourself whether this is an issue of literacy (they have really never encountered that usage of the word) or theatrical stupidity (ie trolling)