The man atheists are terrified to debate has a great post on skepticism and warrant for knowledge.
Excerpt:
Plantinga's profound arguments on warrant for confidence that our true beliefs represent knowledge are a powerful refutation of the Darwinian/materialist/atheist understanding of man and nature.
Plantinga points out that we can trust our beliefs to represent genuine knowledge of reality only if our faculties are functioning properly. If Darwinism is true, however, all of our faculties, including our beliefs, are evolved for survival, not for ascertainment of truth. Truth is selected only if it has survival value, which it may or may not have.
In the Darwinian understanding of man it is merely survival, not ascertainment of truth, that is the real purpose of our beliefs.
But survival does not presuppose true belief. There are situations in which false belief about reality may enhance survival more than or as much as true belief. Plantinga often uses the example of two primitive men who are confronted with a tiger. One man believes the tiger intends to eat him, and runs away and hides. The other man believes the tiger is an intensely playful kitty who loves hide and seek, and the man runs away and hides, so as to better enjoy the game of hide and seek.
From a Darwinian perspective, both men survive, because they escape the tiger. Both beliefs (in this very simple example) are "true" from a Darwinian perspective. Natural selection selects survivors. True beliefs that correspond to reality are not traits preserved by selection, unless they bear (an accidental) link to survival.
Thus, if Darwinism is true, we have no warrant to conclude that our beliefs bear any consistent relation to truth. That would of course mean that we have no warrant to believe Darwinism is true, if Darwinism is true.
We only have warrant to conclude that our beliefs correspond to reality if our faculties are functioning as they were designed and the design was done in accordance with truth.
We only have warrant to conclude that our beliefs correspond to reality if our faculties were designed by a Mind that apprehends truth.
God, that is.
Excerpt:
The French philosopher René Descartes in his struggle against scepticism wondered whether there might be an evil demon which is manipulating his thinking to make him believe that he has a body, that there are objects about him, and so on. Contemporary theorists of knowledge who want to appear au courant may conjecture instead about being a brain in a vat of chemicals stimulated with electrodes by some mad scientist or a body lying in the Matrix while inhabiting a virtual reality. Descartes actually tried to escape the evil demon hypothesis by means of the ontological argument for God, who, as a perfectly good being, would not be a deceiver. For Descartes God was part of the solution, not the problem.
Unfortunately, once you start seriously entertaining these evil demon hypotheses there’s no way out of them. Even your argument for God’s existence could be a delusion wrought by the evil demon!
Does that mean that contemporary theorists of knowledge have all embraced scepticism? Not at all! Rather they have come to realize that Descartes’ whole project was wrong-headed. You don’t start from a point of total doubt and try to build your system of beliefs upon indubitable foundations. The lesson of Descartes is that such a project is doomed to failure. Rather many or most of our beliefs are, as Plantinga says, basic beliefs. They are not inferred from more basic beliefs but constitute a person’s foundational beliefs. Beliefs which are appropriately grounded in experience are properly basic. We are perfectly rational to hold such beliefs unless and until we encounter some defeater of those beliefs. We don’t begin from a point of doubt but from what we are confident that we do know...
What does it mean for our beliefs to be warranted, to constitute knowledge? Plantinga’s answer is that these beliefs are formed by cognitive faculties functioning properly in an appropriate environment. What does it mean to function properly? Well, to function as they were designed to. The theist is in a position to explain the proper functioning of our cognitive faculties, whereas the naturalist is at a loss to give an account of this crucial notion. Indeed, for the naturalist, since our cognitive faculties are not selected for truth but for survival, there is no basis at all to think that our faculties are reliable, for there is no probability that beliefs that promote survival will be true...
God is not part of the problem but part of the solution to the problem of skepticism.
Plantinga's profound arguments on warrant for confidence that our true beliefs represent knowledge are a powerful refutation of the Darwinian/materialist/atheist understanding of man and nature.
Plantinga points out that we can trust our beliefs to represent genuine knowledge of reality only if our faculties are functioning properly. If Darwinism is true, however, all of our faculties, including our beliefs, are evolved for survival, not for ascertainment of truth. Truth is selected only if it has survival value, which it may or may not have.
In the Darwinian understanding of man it is merely survival, not ascertainment of truth, that is the real purpose of our beliefs.
But survival does not presuppose true belief. There are situations in which false belief about reality may enhance survival more than or as much as true belief. Plantinga often uses the example of two primitive men who are confronted with a tiger. One man believes the tiger intends to eat him, and runs away and hides. The other man believes the tiger is an intensely playful kitty who loves hide and seek, and the man runs away and hides, so as to better enjoy the game of hide and seek.
From a Darwinian perspective, both men survive, because they escape the tiger. Both beliefs (in this very simple example) are "true" from a Darwinian perspective. Natural selection selects survivors. True beliefs that correspond to reality are not traits preserved by selection, unless they bear (an accidental) link to survival.
Thus, if Darwinism is true, we have no warrant to conclude that our beliefs bear any consistent relation to truth. That would of course mean that we have no warrant to believe Darwinism is true, if Darwinism is true.
We only have warrant to conclude that our beliefs correspond to reality if our faculties are functioning as they were designed and the design was done in accordance with truth.
We only have warrant to conclude that our beliefs correspond to reality if our faculties were designed by a Mind that apprehends truth.
God, that is.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteWell, you believed absolutely 100% that Romney was going to be elected in a landslide 53%/47%, and win the Electoral College votes heavily too. And assured us on many occasions too.
Your went down in flames. Therefore, you have no warrant to conclude that your beliefs bear any consistent relation to truth.
Therefore, by your own argument, Darwinism is true.
We need to add Satan to complete the theory of knowledge. Whenever a large group of men delude themselves by thinking that their candidate will win in a landslide—even though the polls predict the exact opposite—teh devil must be involved.
DeletePlantinga often uses the example of two primitive men who are confronted with a tiger. One man believes the tiger intends to eat him, and runs away and hides. The other man believes the tiger is an intensely playful kitty who loves hide and seek, and the man runs away and hides, so as to better enjoy the game of hide and seek.
ReplyDeleteBwahaha.
Egnor's beliefs do have a consistent relationship with the truth. A 100% negative correlation. Or, more precisely, in information theoretical terms, it has maximal mutual information.
Even if we all ran and hid from tigers because we believed it was part of a game, evolutionary theory would have explained the real reason for our behavior long ago. In either case the tiger wants to eat us, and evolution has selected for the truth of the situation.
ReplyDelete-KW
"The man atheist(S) are afraid to debate..."
ReplyDeleteSeems that article only pointed to one man - Richard Dawkins. And he's said in the past that he's done debating, because theologians just use circular reasoning in their arguments.
The author is an apologist, too. Craig didnt 'make mincemeat' out of hitchens..
Dawkins made up a series of excuses for avoiding being thrashed by Dr. Craig. Once one excuse would be shown to be a farce, Dawkins would ooze on down to the make excuse. It was both hilarious to watch Dawkins (and his fanboys) squirm, while being simultaneously appalling that such an intellectual coward is thought of so highly be many confused people.
DeleteAs for Christopher Hitchens, here's one of my personal favorites videos:
Christopher Hitchens Struggles To Define His Atheism - YouTube
Whenever I see a Hitchens fanboy mention someone being "Hitchslapped," I'm always quick to post that video. To watch how flustered and angry it gets them brightens up my day. Dr. Craig eviscerates Hitchens, exposing just how shallow and contradictory his atheistic faith is.
Jared,
DeleteNo. Christopher Hitchens stated that he's an atheist because there's no evidence for god(s). In the same way that there's no evidence for fairies, Father Christmas or any other mythical entities.
He's not agnostic about fairies or Father Christmas. Similarly he's not agnostic about god. He's an atheist.
I agree with him. It's up to believers to come up with the evidence.
Also, I don't take much notice of the video. It's obviously been heavily edited.
Dawkins made up a series of excuses for avoiding being thrashed by Dr. Craig.
DeleteHe didn't make a series of excuses. He simply said that Craig wasn't worth debating because Craig is a nonentity puffed up by the ignorant. When Craig is your intellectual flag-bearer, your cause is in trouble.
No one is terrified to debate Craig. The man is a charlatan and recycles the same argument every time he debates, an argument that has been shown to be moronic time and again. No one wants to debate him because there's no reason to. The only people who still pay attention to him (or Plantinga) are people who are too uneducated to understand that they are selling bullshit, or people who are a little bit slow. Among people who have studied philosophy they are regarded as joke.
ReplyDelete