JTB and the agnostic

I never suggested God couldn't protect people. I know He's protected me more times than I can count. The ultimate protection is being taken to Heaven where no harm can befall anyone. I'm glad I am under the protective hand of God. It's a mighty comforting place to live. I highly recommend it.

We seem to have another set of double standards going on here. I ever never once asked you to give up your belief and become and agnostic, and you never stop telling me to cease agnosticism and turn to Christianity. That seems far too one sided to be fair. And the only justification you ever seem to offer is that since it worked for you, it ought to work for everyone. A classic example of inference being offered as evidence.

Live and let live. Oh - but Christians are not allowed to do that: I guess it would really tick off their Saviour if they started acting in Christian manner.

Continue on in your nonbelief if you choose. It would be unChristian of me to not offer salvation to you. But I will definitely cease and desist. The door to eternal life is officially closed to you.

How very noble of you. A bit smug, but noble nonetheless.

No smugness intended. I’m afraid it was just the sound of a closing door. So back to the topic of this thread. The faith of a Christian is a justified true belief. But it is only justified to those who believe. A belief cannot be justified to one who doesn’t believe.

You have unwittingly made my case for me. Theist, like atheist, only has inference to support his worldview. Justification is always a slam dunk over matters of evidence.

So are you suggesting no belief can be justified?

On the contrary, many beliefs are fully justified.   A simple example:  earlier this morning I put my cell phone in my shirt pocket and have not taken it out.   I believe the cellphone is in my pocket.   When I take my dog into the park I am justified in believing that there is at least one dog in that park.

The justification does not have to be deep or profound, it simply cannot be through inference.

Every "justified proof" of the existence, or non-existence of god, will be seen to rely on inference.

Well the first order of business is to establish whether you actually own either a cell phone or dog.

you are quite right to observe that you can only infer my claims unless you have your own justification on the matter. If you were present when I purchased my cellphone you might be justified in believing I own one.

Ownership of pet dogs is a far trickier matter. Yet if you saw me take a pet dog into a park you would be justified in believing that there was at least one dog in that park, regardless of any claim of ownership.

But I wasn't present when you supposedly purchased a cell phone. So I cannot confirm or deny your ownership of said phone.

As far as the dog in the park is concerned, I don't know if there is even a park to take a dog to. You have not provided evidence for a dog or a park.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from believing you have a cell phone, a dog and a park to take your "dog" to, but just because you believe these thing is no reason for me to believe them.

So we are back to square one. Apparently there is no such thing as a justified true belief.

My justifications are based on verifiable facts and those facts are capable of being verified. It is quite possible, if somewhat unlikely, you could come an visit me and watch me take a pet dog to a local park: or even rely on a video recording if you had some evidence that you could trust the person making the recording. Having said that, I would have great difficulty in filming a non-existent dog entering a non-existent park. I suppose it is possible that Christians have an easier time of doing such tasks, and therefore are very wary of other people holding cam-corders

The inference offered by the theist or the atheist cannot every be verified: but sometimes strike a chord by being duplicated. Neither stand scrutiny as justified true beliefs

I see no compelling evidence that would prompt me to make a trip to Cali to verify your supposed cellphone, dog or park. I have no verifiable facts that you own those things. Again, if you are comfortable in believing you actually have those things, that's fine with me. But there isn't any evidence I can verify to justify your belief. So again, we have no justifiable true belief.

The evidence is capable of being verified: refusing to undertake the verification process does not make the evidence incapable of being verified.

I think you might have invented an extraordinary variation of the straw man fallacy in order to counter the claim that theism is not based on a verified true belief. You tone is reminiscent of that of an angry dwarf rending its ire.

Bill wrote:The evidence is capable of being verified:  refusing to undertake the verification process does not make the evidence incapable of being verified.

This is exactly what I said about Christianity. A relationship with Christ can be verified, but refusing to undertake the verification process does not make the evidence incapable of being verified. Thank you Bill. You just proved my point.

A relationship with the supernatural may be experienced by one or more people: experience in itself does not amount to verifiable evidence: this was the heart of your proof that religious belief was not a verified true belief.

When a person enters into a relationship with Jesus Christ, he/she is indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. It is He who confirms, verifies, validates Biblical doctrines. It is the Spirit who reassures us of our eternal security in Christ Jesus. But as you said, not undertaking the verification process does not make the evidence incapable of being verified.

You cannot provide any evidence to convince me you own a cell phone, a dog or have a park to take the dog to if I stubbornly refuse to believe these things. Even if you were to offer the evidence and I refused to accept it as authentic, there is no way you could convince me. That is the position I find myself in concerning my faith. There is ample of evidence for God and Jesus Christ, but people are not willing to undertake the verification process. Again, thank you for wording it so perfectly for me. I will definitely be using this in the future.

chapabel wrote:When a person enters into a relationship with Jesus Christ, he/she is indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. It is He who confirms, verifies, validates Biblical doctrines. It is the Spirit who reassures us of our eternal security in Christ Jesus. But as you said, not undertaking the verification process does not make the evidence incapable of being verified.

If this claim was supported by verifiable evidence it would stand muster. Being able to repeat another person's mental state proves nothing outside that mental state.

Consider the two statements "There is no God" and "There is at least one God." One of the two is correct, simply because there is no third choice. A person believing either has a fifty fifty chance of being right. If that person could add verifiable evidence that is not based on inference, this debate would be settled once and for all.

It is not kept alive by refusing to verify, it is kept alive by the lack of evidence on either side

No, not a lack of evidence. A lack of undertaking the verification process. I have not undertaken the process to verify you own a cell phone or dog therefore I have no evidence you own either. As long as I stay on that spot, I will never have evidence to support your claim. Even if I did pretend to verify the evidence, if I already had a presupposition that none of the evidence would pass muster no amount of evidence would convince me. As long as people refuse to undertake the verification process with an open mind, they will never believe Jesus Christ is really the Son of God.

Your personal belief does not constitute verifiable evidence. It is yours and yours alone. I do not choose to disbelieve it, I simply have no grounds on which to accept it. Still, if you are an agnostic you can let others believe whatever their life experience has led them to believe. A variation of life and let live, but reworded so that the ardent theist may see that it contains no threat.

You are absolutely correct. My belief does not constitute verifiable evidence to anyone but myself. However, if a person is willing to undertake the verification process, God will provide all the hard evidence and proof needed to validate a belief in Him. Just remember, refusing to undertake the verification process does not make the evidence incapable of being verified. So you can text on you cell phone while you sit at the park with your dog and I will worship and pray to my God. And we can both do so knowing the certainty of our own personal justified beliefs.

If you cannot tell the difference between facts and opinions, you will never get a grip of what is verifiable and what is wishful thinking.

I admit my failure to edify you in this matter and intend leaving you alone in this thread from now on. Do please post a victory whoop or similar, so that you can claim that you had the last word: and then peace may descend upon here.

I’m very well aware of the difference between fact and opinion. But there will be no victory whoop; no celebratory dance. Just the realization that refusing to undertake the verification process does not make the evidence incapable of being verified goes both ways. For that I owe you a tremendous Thank you!

Your justification for believing yourself to be right fails to meet the standards of a Justified True Belief. Keep toiling away, you might one day get there. Just not yet, though.

Here’s some justified true beliefs that I hold to and have been proven:

Despite your claim of extensive Bible study, I believe you are Biblically ignorant. You have proven to be unlearned on basic Biblical doctrines.

I believe the “experts” you have offered are nothing more than self-taught linguistics, bloggers who specialize in abandoned amusement parks, home school moms with no college education. So your experts are not qualified to use except in the areas of made up languages, abandoned parks and home school methods.

I believe liberals are sexually grooming children.

Finally, I believe you post statements you cannot validate and when you’re called out, you side step and tell me to look it up for myself.

How’s that for justified true beliefs?