..being able to demonstrate that one’s conclusions are more consistent overall with themselves and with the real world.

Such is noble IMO.

A spiritual realm which never interacts with our experience is irrelevant to us because it never interacts with our experience. A spiritual realm which is going to interact with our experience after death—like an unknown asteroid that is going to smash into the earth one day—is relevant precisely because it will interact with our experience at some point.

Good distinction, I understand and appreciate the difference. Even if I granted such a realm existed, I would still disagree. Any time we’ve made a life decision based on an idea, that idea is relevant whether what the idea describes or purports to descend from exists or not.

..the argument I’m addressing is the claim that everybody lives in some kind of faith-based existence.. My response to that argument is that a world which everything must be based on faith is a world in which reality is simply not relevant

I understand and agree. I don’t think everybody lives in a faith-based world. We all have beliefs, that’s about as much as I’ll say. And I love what you said about solipsism leaving one without anybody to argue with. That cracked me up aloud!

” The “everybody lives by faith” argument is simply a last-ditch effort to avoid the inevitable conclusion that one’s faith is not consistent with the evidence.”

…says it all. It doesn’t take much thought to realize this free floating faith that’s being posited doesn’t really exist. Contrary to the old biblical maxim ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen’, faith is always grounded in some kind of evidentiary claims, even if those claims start and end with holy scriptures or magic voices in the head. To just say “I believe” is meaningless. The pertinent question is “what do you believe IN?”, answered by an offering of specific assertions backed up by supposedly supporting evidence.

And there’s the problem. The real world evidence for a theistic god is very, very poor, and the theists know it. Furthermore, even the argument cobbled together to support this flimsy evidence are poor. Again, the theists know this. So, in lieu of being offered anything substantial, skeptics are offered this end around ploy of pleading to unsubstatiated faith, a thing that doesn’t actually exist. Theistic apologists realize that in the face of overwhelming odds, their only chance to win is to move the battle off the ground, and into thin air.

Instead, I would prefer to focus on being able to demonstrate that one’s conclusions are more consistent overall with themselves and with the real world. If you claim to be able to know something, you ought to be able to demonstrate (a) how it is possible to know it and (b) that it can, indeed, be known (as opposed to merely believed just because you want to or because somebody told you to).

Regarding relevancy, I think it’s a good term because it pinpoints the important aspects of the question. A spiritual realm which never interacts with our experience is irrelevant to us because it never interacts with our experience. A spiritual realm which is going to interact with our experience after death—like an unknown asteroid that is going to smash into the earth one day—is relevant precisely because it will interact with our experience at some point.

The argument I’m addressing here is not that there is or is not evidence for God, the argument I’m addressing is the claim that everybody lives in some kind of faith-based existence, a là The Matrix, in which all conclusions have to be based on faith, because our perceptions are fallible, and thus we have no way to know anything at all about reality, really. Everything is just a belief, based on our 100% evidence-free decision, by faith alone, to choose to view the world in a certain way.

My response to that argument is that a world which everything must be based on faith is a world in which reality is simply not relevant, because if it were relevant, it would impinge on your experience in some way that would provide you with evidence as to whether your faith was consistent with the truth or not. And since the real world does impinge upon our experience in precisely that way (*cough*subprime mortgages*cough*), we know that we do not live in a world where everyone has to live by faith alone. The “everybody lives by faith” argument is simply a last-ditch effort to avoid the inevitable conclusion that one’s faith is not consistent with the evidence.

..I think where Erik’s argument breaks down

Grim’s argument, I believe is what I meant. Sorry Erik.

I got a busy week ahead so this may have to be my last..

..there’s a connection between evidence and truth.

Certainly. I agree 100%. However, to cast faith as an (alleged) truth that is 100% evidence-free is a bit inaccurate, though, even amongst the non-theist religions. I really do think many devout or believering have evidence-based aspects to their various faiths. For example, the Buddhist can hypothetically test the principal of Right Livelihood by harmonizing it with his or her life, and observing the results. A Christian or believer of any other stripe could likely do similar within the particular tenets of their faith. When the Wiccan spell fails, will not the practitioner seek to determine the reason and try again next cycle? In fact, if faith or religion were 100% evidence-free, it would be impossible to successfully evaluate them as individual participants. If there were no possible test, observation or thought process I could rely on to ascertain whether my faith or religion had value, its implications might still certainly be relevant, but I would lack any rational foundation upon which I might evaluate my faith or religion.

To argue that all evidence is derived from faith (i.e. from belief unsupported by evidence) is to claim that truth is ultimately unknowable.

Well, yeah and no. I think where Erik’s argument breaks down is in casting two different categories of object as equal to support an argument that both kinds of trust are equal. I freely admit believing in gravity is much more ostensibly justifiable than believing in a spiritual realm. Continuing with ID and Galileo, of course we have to trust or ‘have faith’ in empiricism, but nonetheless we can demonstrate tanglibly that Earth circles the sun. We cannot demonstrate tangibly that whenever science proffers a potentially inadequate hypothesis, such is any sort of ‘proof’ that God created the universe.

..if there was never any interaction between reality and our experience sufficient to impart some knowledge of the truth to us—then the truth would be simply irrelevant.

I agree, but I think where I keep getting hung up is with irrelevant, and I currently can’t think of any better word to use. Non-existent fails, because perception is not a prerequisite of existence, either. I want to say something like, “—then the truth would be simply not ascertainable via reason, or something. Does that make any sense at all? An imperceptible truth can still exist and be relevant, but it cannot be evaluated, confirmed, accepted or rejected.

“things which are imperceptible and which do not influence our experience in any way.” What I’m going for is the idea of relevancy. If there existed, say, some “spiritual” realm that was irretrievably isolated from our existence, such that this realm could never interact in any way with the realm we exist in, then that spiritual realm would be irrelevant to us.

Although imperceptible and beyond influence, asteroids and plate tectonics do interact with the real, tangible world, so I grant that much, but even with the amendment, I still disagree. Perception is not a prerequisite of relevance. Even if a spiritual realm existed that was 100% isolated from our biological existence, such still cannot preclude relevance. It could very well be, for example, that the realm in question is our post-mortem destination where our actions on Earth determine our status. In such a case, wouldn’t such a realm be 100% relevant?

IMO, where your statement (and Sagan’s dragon) hold up 100% as worded is in the arena of science or falsifiable matters. Something imperceptible and exhibiting nil authentic interaction with the real world does seem irrelevant in science.

My context is not rigorous philosophy, and you’re right, I’m oversimplifying things a bit here. But the main point I’m shooting for is that there’s a connection between evidence and truth. To argue that all evidence is derived from faith (i.e. from belief unsupported by evidence) is to claim that truth is ultimately unknowable. If that were the case—if there was never any interaction between reality and our experience sufficient to impart some knowledge of the truth to us—then the truth would be simply irrelevant. If it’s never going to affect us in any way, why bother discovering the truth? But we bother, because truth does affect us and therefore is relevant.

“[R]eason is reliable..”

This is only correct to the degree to which it is sound. Reliability is not an intrinsic feature of reason or reasoning; reliability does seem to be an intrinsic feature of pure reason or true reasoning.

“Any ‘reality’ which we can neither perceive nor influence is simply an irrelevant ‘reality.’

This is false and very similar to Carl Sagan’s hypothetical dragon-in-the-garage argument which I’ve always thought was quite short-sighted. This is tantamount to saying only that which is empirically perceptible or amenable to influence can have value, worth or relevance, and I object on at least three grounds:

1) I object logically because of the out-of-scope quantifier any.

2) I object philosophically because to say a construct is irrelevant is to assign a value to said construct. How can one assign any reasonable value to something they can neither influence nor perceive? Hence, this is a hidden given, a free lunch, a breach of cogency. Imperceptibility and influence-ability are not intrinsic or necessary properties of relevance.

3) I object empirically because such is not born out in the real world. Before the discovery of Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, the concept of asteroids as intra-space objects that could collide into Earth was 100% imperceptible and 100% beyond influence – yet also 100% relevant to the point that we could not debate the relevance of asteroids without them. Similarly, prior to its discovery, plate tectonics was also 100% imperceptible and it still remains 100% beyond influence, yet plate tectonics is certainly a relevant reality.

So we can easily see that imperceptibility and influence-ability are not intrinsic or necessary properties of relevance, and that at any given time, relevant things exist that are both imperceptible and beyond influence.

Your discussion pits two under-educated persons against one another. Nothing emerges but confusions, long cleared up over the last 150 years in the foundations of mathematics and formal logics.

Here’s an appropriate quote (rather than a vanity quote) from Einstein: “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

Put differently, mathematics applied to nature provides models of nature (“are not certain”). Not unassailable descriptions of nature as it is; even less ontologically irreplaceable explanations of nature. Mathematical theorems supply so-called irrefutable truths (“are certain”) since they may be derived from a distinct, coherent, and finite set of axioms.

The geometry of Euclid and that of Riemann differ over the famous “parallel postulate (axiom).” There are no dogmata at issue concerning the axiom sets; the road divides over the status of parallel lines — either they are or they are not.

Each axiom set gives rise to a perfectly sane (self-consistent) idealized space. As alternative geometries, they rest comfortably side by side. But they can’t both be representations of space-time; they offer incompatible models of the world.

I’m not one to post here, but I thought you might be interested in some of the developments concerning the tu quoque argument.

The tu quoque is rightly applied to forms of rationalism that sees justification as “Rational”; “. . . that there is an essential logical limitation to rationality: that rational defense and examinational of ideas must, for logical reasons, be terminated by an arbitrary and irrational appeal to what may be called dogmas or absolute presuppositions.” (W.W. Bartley, Evolutionary Epistemology, p 317) So, there’s either (1) an infinite regress of justification made to an authority, or that (2) one step in the regress is held dogmatically.

I think the only form of rationalism that has successfully skirted the tu quoque would be W.W. Bartley’s Comprehensively Critical Rationalism.

Look who’s talking. How many times have xtians tried to use the bible (both sides must accept it as true, right?) to prove God’s existence?

It’s ultimately a tu quoque.

Really, it’s a typical strategy for all denialists, altie med cults, antivax cults, etc. It is the claim that “your reasoning is faulty because it isn’t mine” and “all truths are co-equal (but ours is better)”.

The moment you descend into the pit of the origin of logic, you have shown your original argument has no merit. If it requires abandoning logic, it’s not worth your time.

I refute it thus. <kick>