if you mean hypotheticaly, then god would have helped in that situation

but that only applies if you believe in god and reject coincidence as an explination.

Okay, so He has infinite knowledge and wisdom.  In that case, don't you believe that he's totally omnipotent?

In order to discuss whether god's influence overrules free will you have to assume, if only for the sake of argument, that god both exists and is willing to influence.  Whether you believe or not is irrelevant for the purpose of the discussion.  I thought this was fairly self-explanatory to be honest...

In any case the question isn't whether god was helpful or not.  The question, as I stated, is whether god nullified the person's free will by bringing to their attention additional information.

Or to put it another way, does god subvert someone's free will by merely giving them the information to exercise their free will the way they intended to?

sqrl took the words right out of my mouth

that was perfect sqrl

1. "...Our senses give plentiful if (apparently) questionable evidence for the universe".  In the sense that you mean, sure, they give plentiful evidence, and that is precisely the problem I'm presenting here.  You're sense data is evidence of many, if not an infinite, number of interpretations/judgements.  For example, what you're sensing right now is consistent with the belief (judgement) that your sitting in a room (or wherever you are), that you're having a very vivid dream, that you're in the Matrix, that you're in a room arranged to look where you think you are, that you're sitting at a particular angle in a very complex work of illusionary art, ad infinitum.  And this is the inevitable case for belief you have from start to finish (fundamental to "auxillary").  Thus, if every moment of sense data is consistent with a number of judgements, you're stuck to either pick a judgement arbiterarely or not pick anything at all.

2. Merely because you pick judgements of sense data that don't contradict each other (often) doesn't mean that any one judgement is true (as, again, there are a number of  judgement consistent with the sense data).  This is the real fundamental problem of the method of empiricism.  Heck, I could make a number of arbiterary assumptions right that would have 0 contradictions with each other (and so remaining "consistent", as you say).  Consistency among your beliefs does't mean any of them are right. 

 Pardon me if I've misunderstood something you've said (just in case).

1.  You say that the Matrix theory is an interpretation of the evidence, but really it is just a fantasy that contradicts the evidence (while being compatible with it). 

"Thus, if every moment of sense data is consistent with a number of judgements, you're stuck to either pick a judgement arbiterarely or not pick anything at all."  But we're not picking arbitrarily IMO.  See the second paragraph of my above response to (1).  I do not see that you responded to it. 

And I have no idea what you mean by "auxiliary" -- where did that come from? 

2. I agree that consistency of belief does not mean correctness of belief.  But I'm getting to practicality here.  I do not see any practical alternative to accepting sense data as at least somewhat reliable.  ANY.  And once one gives the slightest credence to one's senses, the rest follows.  Because once you have evidence that you accept even partially, you can see whether your belief holds up to the evidence, especially whether your belief can predict future evidence accurately, etc. 

YOU have said that these IS an alternative to accepting sense data of any kind.  "judgments made on sensory data are not necessary and are avoidable"  Forgive me if I missed it, but I do not recall you ever specifying your strategy for such avoidance.  See my ABCD paragraph.

1. It does not contradict the evidence in that sense data can be interpreted any way you decide, so it can be supported by "evidence" (evidence being whatever you decide the sense data represents).  And we are picking what we think sense data represents arbitrarily (I thought that that word looked wrong), as there is no reason to think that what we've picked is correct (other than consistency. See 2).  For your second paragraph in your other post, A, B, and C are all interpretations of sense data already, so it doesn't make any sense to ask how we're going to go about in everyday life without making sense judgements when everyday life is a sense judgement in itself.  By auxiliary, I just meant the opposite of fundamental.

2.  My point was that there are a number (if not infinite) of beliefs that could be consistent, and that only inconsistency can demonstrate anything, like the falseness of a method of truth (e.g., "Flipping a coin ALWAYS yields truth" *Flips coin twice*, "Heads and tails.  Huh".)  Managing not to contradict yourself is not evidence, it merely shows a coherent method.

Avoiding a judgement on senses is fine, because your ABCD paragraph, as I noted above, was dependent on assuming empiricism anyways.  In other words make up a truth statemnt in your head that doesn't entail a "Because I saw this" or "I felt that", and that's how it can be done.

1. If you're now saying that the passage of time could also be an illusion, I think we're just about done with this.  It means you don't trust even your own mind, let alone the senses.  Even if all your memories are false, you still have memory.  More than that, if you deny (A) you deny that you exist at all, which takes contrarianism past the point of silliness.  I don't see how one's own existence (the bare fact, devoid of any particulars) can possibly be said to derive from sense data.  Even Descartes agrees. 

2. So your alternative to accepting the sensed world is to make up your own fantasy world, or have no world at all, correct?

:)

Ahh, but see, my larger argument is this:

Every argument that I could possibly make in favor of empirical evidence (or anything else) must ultimately necessarily rely on empirical evidence.

Moreover, every argument that you (or anyone else) could possibly make about against empirical evidence must ultimately necessarily rely on your empirical evidence (and actually, also your appeal to my own).

For you to say "life is like this," you must be referring to some experience of life--that there are things that you've seen, heard, touched, tasted, and smelled that have led you to particular conclusions.  No one is born a skeptic, for instance; usually that comes in high school or later. ;)

And so, we're trapped, all of us, in empiricism's web.  If your demand is that I prove empricism via non-empirical means, I can't, and concede the point.  I cannot prove anything outside of empiricism.

However, I take solace in knowing that you cannot prove anything except by empirical means.  In fact, our very concept of proof comes from something that you later state doesn't really matter: consistency.

Fortunately, and as I've stated before, I don't see why any of us should labor to "prove" empiricism (which is actually impossible, if we grant that sensory data is axiomatic, which we have; axioms aren't things that you prove--they're... axioms).  The reliability of the judgements we make based off of our sensory data is confirmed and re-confirmed everytime we do something successfully based off of them: I see the apple; I move to pick it up and eat it; I succeed.

None.

That's actually the entire point.

Well, if my case is that empiricism cannot be denied, for any attempt to deny empiricism must necessarily give credence to one's sensory data, and one's ability to make judgements based off of it...  then there's every reason to use empiricism; it's unavoidable.

But if you're claiming the discovery of an additional, sixth sense mechanism--direct info from God--I'd like to hear why you think it exists.

If you're sincerely interested in an honest pursuit of truth (and I'm not trying to imply that you're not, but it's something that only you will ever know), then at some point you'll have to realize that "isn't necessarily the explanation" isn't a good argument for or against anything at all.

It's a phrase that I can tack onto any kind of assertion, and while you might say "yes!  exactly!", I would say that to do such an arbitrary thing is meaningless and counterproductive.  Doubt is a fine thing... when there is good reason for doubt.  However, if and when evidence points to a conclusion, the right thing to do is to give tentative agreement to that conclusion on the basis of that evidence.

If someone said to me "food allows us to survive," and I said "that isn't necessarily the explanation"... well... what am I saying?  Am I proposing a test--starve oneself and see the results?  No!  Of course not, because even in the event of starvation, we'd be no closer to "knowledge" because it would only be more "empirical evidence" and would continue to succumb to my "isn't necessarily" mantra.

The "isn't necessarily" thing wouldn't in this case provide anything to anyone--it wouldn't help and could only hinder.  And, moreover, the person saying it--me or anyone else--wouldn't at heart believe it.  Nobody who lives actually doubts that food is vital.  We all eat food, or we wouldn't be here, typing this.  No one is a skeptic through and through, because a skeptic through and through would be unable to survive; you might not be an empiricist intellectually, but this world is an empirical world, and to live in it, you do so through empirical means.

And so, I'm calling upon you to examine your own life and experiences (which is the richest body of experimental data you'll ever know) and realize that the decisions you make daily are based on your trusting your judgements and the evidence of your senses; realize that your continuing existence is predicated on the correctness of empiricism; and then, honestly, ask yourself if empricism is "just as likely" as anything else.

Of course you can't test yourself out of the Matrix (except that, in the movie, they ultimately did... otherwise, there would have been no movie, which is their concession of my point).  But that means: if we're in a dream, or the Matrix, or brains in a jar... it doesn't really matter.  Everything that we care about is consistent and unaffected by that larger, unknowable scope.

If the things we care about are affected, then that means that our reality is impinged in some way by the Matrix... which, in our terms, would mean that we can sense it, and then the normal rules apply.

In other words, Occam's Razor applies here.  Or perhaps more directly, Carl Sagan's corollary of it--"The Dragon in my Garage" (which is an essay in his larger work, The Demon-Haunted World, though if you do a search for the essay, I'll bet you can find it online... excellent reading).  Those things that cannot be sensed by us at all... don't matter at all.

"Consistency lends nothing to plausibility"?????

Really???? :)

All of logic (and hence mathematics and also rational thought) is based on the idea of consistency.  In fact, "plausibility" is an absolutely meaningless sentiment when we scorn "consistency."  We posit things because they are consistent with known facts; what possible reason would anyone have to posit something that is completely inconsistent?  (The mistakes people make, ultimately, are positing things that are consistent with some facts, but inconsistent with others; but no one is so arbitary as to posit something inconsistent with everything, were that even possible, and no one would use the term 'plausible' for it.)

As to the theist, I would contend that where most theists get in trouble is by being inconsistent with the evidence of our senses.  But that's where I think all errant beliefs will ultimately wind up; the theists mistakes aren't particular to them--everyone is wrong about something, sometimes.

Internal consistency, yes.  But not necessarily consistency with the sensory data received from the outside world.  To be consistent with that data means reaching certain conclusions and not others; i.e. apples good, cyanide bad.

As though theism were directly contradictory to empiricism?  Not at all: the Bible is read with eyes.  In fact, Biblical language is filled with empirical language and believers often insist that their faith is based on the evidence of the things they've witnessed, etc.

Christ's followers, for instance, claimed to have witnessed the resurrected Christ; there probably wouldn't be a Christianity if not for that.

I don't reject theism because it's non-empirical, per-se.  (Even claims to non-empirical devices, like faith, will ultimately rely on empirical evidence to prove "that faith works," etc.)  I reject it because I do not believe the (empirical) evidence provided is sufficient.

Baptism is spiritual right ? so would an athiest getting de-baptised be somewhat contradictory ?

Believing there isn't a god is accaptable , refusing to believe in a god also makes sense, but to believe there couldn't be a god confuses me.