Rise of atheism: 100,000 Brits seek 'de-baptism'

[Final-Fan]

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:

appolose said:
I do agree with you that sensation is an axiom (an unavoidable one at that); the difference here is the judgements we make from our sensations are not necessary, and not a better idea than anything else.  Furthermore, I still disagree with you on the idea that meaning and sense data are inseperable, as I gave the possibility of there being an outside source that simply drops meanings into your mind.

For your last line; that would be a correct assessment if your position is true. If mine is true (that judgements made on sensory data are not necessary and are avoidable), then that has massive ramifications

Didn't follow the whole exchange; no time (as detailed above) -- but WHAT?!

You've so far argued AFAIK that sensory data might not be true because the universe might be a lie; this is not amenable to any sort of measurable test for obvious reasons.  In fact, how can we test ANYTHING if our senses are totally unreliable?

I'll answer this part first;  I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, but for you last sentence I'll say, yes, we can't test anything with our senses (that is, our interpretation of our sense data) unless we assume they're true.

For your other post (hopefully, without being redundant in light of your other post); What I mean to say is that empiricism is on equal footing as, say, flipping a coin as a method of truth, because both are equally unfounded as can be.

Perhaps my question should have been:  why do you think that "judgments made on sensory data are not necessary and are avoidable"?  I just don't see how that's true at all, at least when you're talking about a judgment as basic as "the universe is at least vaguely similar in actuality to how I perceive it". 

Also, to respond to the part I reinserted into the above quote:
Not a better idea than anything else?  I presume this is connected to the statements you made which are substantially the same as "flipping a coin to decide what is true is just as good and likely to be true as empiricism".  But that's not true at all!  The most obvious thing that comes to mind for me is that flipping a coin will not produce the same answer to the same question consistently, which empiricism will.  This leaves alone the question of how you'd even flip the coin, let alone tell the result, without empiricism.    Again, if you don't trust your senses at all, I don't see how that leaves you with anything more than cogito ergo sum. 

Secondly, I don't think that the possibility you mentioned is a valid counterpoint.  Any sort of input into your mind could IMO be considered to be "sensed" and even if that's not the case, non-sensory input isn't inherently any more likely to be true than sensory input.