One thing: I don't know about other European countries but two german chancellors have been atheists or agnostic so far: Gerhard Schröder and Helmut Schmidt (both social democrats, Schmidt is still a member of the church because he supports most of its moral views).

You could argue that Helmut Schmidt is the best politician Germany ever had and I've never seen a person with such high moral standards. Schröder changed Germany's social system to make it more future-proof even though he knew the voters would dislike him for it and he opposed Bush's anti terror wars.

There you go I'm sure there are other important atheists or agnostics in other european countries.

Hmm... I don't want to bog us down too much into language if there's not a compelling reason to do so--and I'm not 100% sure that I understand what you're suggesting here--but doesn't it seem, at least, that people acquire language through a process of education?  Like a Hooked on Phonics, or the Spanish classes I took in high school, or some such?

I'd do that quote thing you're doing with me, but I don't know how :P  So...

Now, perhaps this wouldn't eliminate the possibility of God's playing a role in the acquisition of language.  Maybe the earth's orbiting the sun, too, has God's hand in it; perhaps God plays a part in all "natural processes"...

But, unless we have some evidence for a phenomenon not explainable without God's intervention (e.g. a child knows a language that he's never been in a position to learn by normally understood means)... then wouldn't Occam's Razor suggest that there's no good reason to add God to our explanation, if God isn't needed?

Now, Occam's Razor is an epistemological tool, not a metaphysical one--even if we dismiss God from our explanation of language acquisition, that doesn't mean that God doesn't actually play a role.  It just means that we don't have any good reason for suspecting that God does play a role.

I think the likeliness of either God giving language or us learning it from empiricism is about the same, in that your arguments for us having acquired it through the latter mean actually depend on empirical evidence (what you remember about how you learned).  So, I'm proposing that any explanation in this case is as likely as that one, so there's no reason to just use that one.

Unless you do have a good reason for believing that language comes directly from God?

Er, besides all this, I can't help but feel that we've really gotten off track somehow.  I think that originally you were questioning the validity of sensory data... but here, really what it seems to me is that you're not attacking the five senses, per se, but suggesting a sixth (superior?) means of getting information--direct data from God, as it were.

I'm doing my best to get what you're saying, I swear, so please help me out if I'm still off-base. :)

Heh, that kinda of what I'm getting at (although this whole line of conversation may have nothing to do with our origina argument anyways).  I'm proposing that learning language through the 5 senses isn't the only possible explanation for language, and thus isn't necessarily the explanation.

Both.

I'm saying that the meanings that we ascribe to words are based on how we interpret (judgements) the information that we've gathered in the world (sensory data).

The concept of "cat" (to refer back to my earlier example) is based on judgements we make about the hard sensory data we've recieved--what we've seen, heard, and touched (and maybe smelled, but hopefully not tasted).

OK, that makes sense (I think).

It's true that we can make errors!  Maybe, initially, a person doesn't differentiate properly between a cat and a dog and calls them all cat--maybe a young child thinks that everything on four legs is a cat.

But just because we can make errors, I don't believe that all of these judgements are arbitrary or "cannot be trusted."  I think that there is good reason to interpret our sense data in some particular ways.  Where cats are concerned, I suspect that people in different cultures, at different places, at different times will all have developed a concept for the cat (though, of course, the linguistic symbol would be different in each case); they all will have separated out cats from dogs.

But why do you think we have good reason to reach the conclusions that we do?  What evidence could suggest that our judgements are correct that wouldn't be more empirical evidence?

No, I don't think so.  I admit to errors, but I don't think that these errors destroy empiricism.  Instead, we test the judgements that we make, and then witness results, and refine our judgements accordingly.  This is different from making unfounded assumptions about one's own correctness.

If I see a thing and judge that it is a physical object that I can hold, and move to pick it up, this constitutes a form of a test.  My picking it up leads me to believe that my prior judgement was correct.  If, however, I'm unable to pick it up, I have to revise my initial judgement.

I believe that the theist's mindset, however, is often to discount the necessity of testing one's judgements or the need to revise initial judgements should tests go awry.  In fact, I rather believe "faith" to be a specific declaration that a particular judgement stands independent of evidence, and will not be changed even should any tests show that it ought to be changed.

The testing doesn't lend itself to anything, however; for example, you could never test to prove your not in a dream, and thus any test you could try to use would be useless.  Consistency lends nothing to plausibility; if it did, than the theist would more likely be correct than the empiricist (what's he have to be inconsistent about?)

***

Yeesh.  I'm no philosopher, and we're in some fairly deep verbiage here! :)  I don't want my attempts to get specific to dull what I'd like to say overall, which is:

I believe that we ought to believe according to the best evidence.  That evidence (the possibility of the sixth/God-sense notwithstanding) comes from our senses--we make judgements based on primary (axiomatic) sensory data, and any of those judgements may be errant, but those errors can be challenged and corrected.

And that is the entire point!  If there's an error, we try to determine what it is and address it.  While we have what we feel to be the best evidence, we're always open to better.  If God exists--if atheism is an "errant judgement"--then I hope to learn the fact, but it will have to be based on evidence, either new sensory data, or a better way of interpreting that data that I already have.

But it is a bad argument for God to say that we cannot trust our senses, or cannot trust our judgement, so an arbitrary belief in God is just as good (or, actually, bad) as any other.  Right now, I feel it makes much more sense (if you will) to believe in cats than it does to believe in God.  But if you have evidence to the contrary (actual evidence, not just a general skepticism), I would love to hear it.

We have no evidence at all to suggest ourjudgements are correct; testing does nothing, as it could be a dream, or we could be in the Matrix :P.  Consistency is not a mark of plausibility.  One could make up any method of truth that had 100% constistency.  So I am forecd to come to the conclusion that empiricism is wholly an assumption, just as much as theism.

1.  So you're arguing that those judgments aren't necessary because you might not actually have to eat, sleep or breathe because only sensory evidence says we need to?  If not, what are you saying?  Why, exactly, are the sense judgments avoidable?  How do you propose avoiding them in everyday life? 

2.  NO YOU COULD NOT SAY THE SAME.  51/49 is not equivalent consistency with 99/1.  And the coin would randomly be wrong more often than right as often as it would be right more often than wrong, so IMO that comparison is totally bankrupt. 

3.  Fair enough, as long as you remember you're speaking hypothetically.