Mediaeval
baptizatus sum
Not every worldview can justify trust in our power to know. Under atheism trusting in things that are demonstrated by brains not intelligently designed, not to mention brains fallible and finite in knowledge, is indeed question-begging, circular reasoning from possibly deceptive experience to possibly erroneous conclusion. (Under atheism, experience is not merely possibly deceptive but actually deceptive, but that’s another argument.) It is atheism’s epistemological pickle, then, that we have clearly established, being demonstrated sufficiently by the answer to the question, Would you trust the calculations of a computer that was not intelligently designed? We know the answer to that question by extrapolating from experience, and others, theists and non-theists alike, have reached the same conclusion (post #74). It is precisely my point that if you can’t find your experiences to be trustworthy, you have no possibility of a workable epistemology. This sums up well atheism’s pickle. So I agree with you that experience is fundamental. It partakes of self-evident truth, the recognition of which is the only way out of reasoning in a circle. Earlier in the thread we reached the same conclusion with Descartes, that knowledge is possible only if we have a perfectly intelligent and morally perfect Designer. Now we can add to that a Divinely-given ability in us to recognize self-evident truth, and our epistemology has a very firm foundation.Trusting in things that are demonstrated via experience is question-begging?
Well, you've got quite an epistemological pickle then.
If you can recognize errors you can indeed learn from them.
But, in order to decipher truth from error you are going to need some sort of demonstration and thus some experience.
So, you're going to be in quite a bit of an epistemological pickle if you can't rely on your experiences to find truth.
All of your ideas rely on your experiences, so, if you can't find them to be trustworthy you have no possibility of a workable epistemology.
And to reiterate to you. You can't KNOW your brain is intelligently designed without using your brain and thus trusting it.
I would suggest, given the pure circularity of your argument, and your willingness to throw out direct experience, that your argument demonstrates that your brain isn't that good at coming up with reasons to trust your brain.
I think you should trust that instinct and stop globbering up the world with your sophism.
It's actually a very good reason to dismiss your ideas...
Universal skepticism is quite a bit better than universal nihilism with the idea of supporting a pet idea such as you are doing here.
Every statement can indeed contain a perhaps and it effects nothing except your degree of certainty of any given idea.
Certainty isn't the point of knoledge, application is.
The foundation of knoledge is experience.
The point of knoledge is use.
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