And why, I put it to you, must we seek certainty? Why should we not seek reasonable certainty? We cannot ever be fully certain of anything beyond our own existence. We cannot ever be absolutely certain that we are human, that the universe is as we appear to perceive it, or any other single iota of data save that the observer, in some form, must exist or else he could not be questioning his certainty.

Thus, reason becomes a means to make sense of observations we already cannot be certain of. If the basic observations on which we operate our reason, and through which we understand our reason, are only reasonably certain to begin with, then why should we expect reason to deliver absolutes? Reason my imply absolutes, but reason is predicated on trusting the observations we make, and so such implications are only as reliable as the observations they are based upon.

Science and reason are not the pursuit of absolute knowledge. They are the pursuit of absolute questioning. Of striving not to answer the question before us, but of uncovering the questions our predecessors never knew existed to ask.

You claim 'blind nature' (by which I take to mean the observable universe) does not care if we find the right answers, and so cannot be trusted. But 'blind nature' does not deceive. It contains of itself only the correct answers. It is ourselves, our limited perceptions, and often our preconceived misconceptions, which deceive us, and prevent us from observing the universe around us as clearly as we wish. Any mind, as you put it, is subject to constructing preconceived notions. Any mind is subject to the same limitation we are: There is no external source that can be relied upon, because that mind cannot independently verify that it exists in the form it perceives itself to exist in. Thus, no thinking thing can be relied upon exclusively.

In fact, we must rely upon 'blind nature', precisely because it does not care: It is impartial. It has no motives, and so has no bias. It will never tell us we have the right answer when we do not, because it wants us to feel good. We are forced to rely upon 'blind nature', because it will only give us more to observe, present us with more evidence to attempt to understand, and by making that attempt, more opportunities to use unbiased, impartial sources to correct any preconceived errors we may make.

But in the end, there is no absolute certainty beyond 'I am'. Anything claiming to provide it seeks to deceive you.

**** Warning: Full MattShizzle halfway drunk rant follows. Presup is about to be blasted with masterworks of pimp profanity****

Why are we even arguing with this dumb motherfucker. He don't even realize he deserves the troll avatar. Stupid people are one thing but stupid motherfuckers that think they're intelligent are really fucking stupid. This dumbass doesn't even get that the godless geeks list of proofs for god is a parody and posted a link to them as good proofs for god. What the fuck? If he's a pasrody he's brilliant but if he's serious (which I suspect) he's too stupid to be allowed to reproduce. Holy shit, you are so fucking stupid you probably think Taco Bell is the Mexican phone company. You so stupid your IQ test came back "negative." Bitch, if we downloaded your brain we could fit it in a pocket calculator and probably have plenty of memory left. I'm sure you rode the short bus to school as a kid - yeah that meant you were special but here's a surprise - it wasn't special in a good way. You probably think that the sun is the back of the moon.

What the fuck is this thing you call 'god'?

You are dimly aware that to predicate logic on x, you have to first assume that causality--through logic--is valid, right?

most of you know I'm new here. Why hasn't Presup noticed the troll avatar in all the time I've been here? Why is he/she/it only managing to notice now?

so... would it be a reasonable assumption to think he knows he's losing the game he's playing and is now using the 'poor mistreated xtian who's being attacked by the mean, nasty, evil atheist mods' tactic?

I've never seen anyone guzzle as much cum as Presuppositionalist.

You can quote me on that.

MODS!

Hiiiiii.

Help me out. One of you has mistakenly given me a "troll" avatar. Read any of my threads: I am one of the most intelligent members of this forum*, and I consistently contribute interesting points of discussion in civil fashion. I don't deserve this.

Your posts... have all sucked. In fact, I need a god to account for the uniformity of their crapiness.

Please restore my original avatar immediately. Thank you. Also, in the interest of justice, you should punish whoever gave me this avatar. I suspect Hambydammit. Thank you again.

Hey guys, did anyone save a copy of the "bible flying over stock photo globe" icon? No? Sorry, dude.

magilum,

What you wrote were my exact thoughts as I read presup's opening.

If only I'd been awake at 1 a.m., I would have beat you to it.  Thanks.

Now, does anyone still have that pic of the whining little presupper on the tricycle

with the big square wheel on the front ????? Ya know, the one that says "You Fail".

[Edit] I've removed my own post because I put it in the wrong thread.  Doh!

M

I'm going to mostly echo BMac here by saying it's a big presumption you're making that science is the blind pursuit of certain knowledge ignorant of a lack of justification, and not instead a meticulously organised collection of practical meta-knowledge incorporating a decent level of awareness of its flimsy foundation.

The pursuit of certain knowledge is really only a lay view of modern science, whereas the hard working nuts and bolts people of academia are often quite painfully aware that their abstract tools are just distant relatives makeshift mimicking the real universe, well enough to use, but far from certain.

It's also a mistake to say that reason does not presuppose an 'entity for' uniformity because it presumes to not need one, that's completely wrong. There is far more justification to not presupposing an immutable one such as the fact that presupposing some non evident immutable entity then entails anticipating what is to be presupposed about that entity, and further what is to be presupposed about presupposing that entity ad nauseam.. in the who made God, who made god's god, and who made god's god's god...... fashion.. only more like:

... what should god look like, what should looking at god look like that we should ascertain what god looks like - what should looking at looking at god look like that we should ascertain what looking at god should entail, thereby to ascertain what looking at god does entail, thereupon to decide what god looks like... and so on.

The best thing to do with the justification of reason, surely you must agree, is to take down a note in the margin that your justification is weak and might fail... and carry on, otherwise known as pragmatism.

**I'd like to make an additional note about the troll avatar thing. Frankly I've been less than impressed before regarding the criteria for handing out of shame labels that some mods here hold. I didn't think Gavagai deserved one, really, and there were a couple of others as well that I can't think of off the top of my head, but anyhow, I don't think Presupp deserves a shame label, to my mind he does put genuine effort and consideration into his posts, even if he is a bit stubborn, I don't think he means to be anything less than a wholehearted contributor to the discussion.  I hope I don't come across as presumptuous here, it's only an opinion from the sidelines and I fully endorse the admins making their own decisions as to the forums culture. However, just one more thing, I'm curious, who are the theist mods in the KEWK forum? I've not seen any.

Many of us have and had excellent laughs due to that reading. Others have already shredded Bahnsen and Van Til so I leave it to you to find those threads. You're welcome.

By the way

Yesterday while we were screwing my girlfriend screamed "Oh God!" That proves God exists

would also be a joke. Would you consider that valid evidence?

I heard it has something with piles. Nasty stuff.