Aaron wrote:]It seems to me that you are the one who is obliged to the need to have experienced all existence in order to know that the law of non-contradiction is valid (I'm not saying that you do personally, because as I've gathered you're more of a cowboy philosophy if-it-hasn't-failed-me-a-hundred-times-in-a row-that's-all-I-need-to-know kind of guy).
You mean I'm an empiricist? Sure I am. So are you. I'll bet everytime you sit in a chair you do it because the chair held you up the time before. When it doesn't, and you go crashing to the ground, I'll bet you figure the chair is broken and you either fix it or don't use it again.
We're applying that same criteria in this discussion.
If we are going to call the law of non-contradiction a law and if we are going to substantiate that law through the process of demonstration then it must be tested and verified in every possible case. This is an impossibility, so either we change its name to the theory of non-contradiction or we say it is a self evident truth
Look at every word in these posts. Let's say we take the post and it's words to the rim of the universe. Do you think each word will surrender its meaning and mean something else? Do I really have to actually go there to know that it's not the case that the word "it" would suddenly mean something else? Is this an assumption, or has the relentless solidity of empirical data give us assurance that the law is in effect?
I don't dispute that we can conjure a paradox here, though it's a mild one at best. Yes, we have to presume the laws of logic in order to assert the laws of logic and quite often enough I've admitted that we
could be brains in a vat, etc.
But that's not how we actually function. We function by interfacing with reality, and reality exposing data to us by which we build a case for belief or disbelief. We have criteria, and different people apparently have differing degrees of standards that comprise such criteria.
You theists hear a story, and, in what is effectvely zero demonstration that it's true, believe it. I woud submit that there are very few instances where you do this n other areas of your lives, but you certainly do it here. Some of you perhaps seek patterns of events to shore it up, like, maybe a positive test in some medical issue, or a windfall of money, or a feeling of security and comfort... The palette is broad.
I need demonstration of an assertion to believe in it. My criteria is of a materialist one, and it's one in which I experience all of
you to be hopelessly rooted in as well. Everytime you reply to a post, you reaffirm that you accept all the laws of logic, and these repeated examples grounded in words and their identity, demonstrates that this is true. Is this empiricism? Sure. Cowboys are empiricists too. So are theists. The moment you reply, you surrender to it. Even if you don't reply, you surrender to it, though I don't get to know that. But
you know it. Because in order to choose not to reply, you'd have read it and surrendered to materialism and empiricism once again.
If not, and this is a trap for theist and atheist alike, then existence is absurd, and if existence is absurd, I
STILL am perfectly justified in dismissing the theists position. In fact, everyone is perfectly justified in dismissing (or accepting as utterly true) any and all positions because it's all absurd anyway.
