Evidentialism

Great Debates
1

Evidentialism is not restricted to atheism as there are theistic evidentialists (by atheism, i am meaning the naturalistic worldview, since atheistic outworkings means that there can only be naturalistic origins-- of the universe and of life). So basically, the arguements of the two sides of the fence go something like this:

(atheist evidentialist)

  1. It’s irrational to accept theistic belief in the absence of sufficient evidence.
  2. There is insufficient evidence to support belief in God.
  3. Therefore, belief in God is irrational.

(theistic evidentialist)

  1. It’s irrational to accept theistic belief in the absence of sufficient evidence.
  2. There is sufficient evidence to support belief in God.
  3. Therefore, belief in God is rational.

So, the premise for both is the same, but different opinion of what is sufficient supporting evidence leads to different conclusions.

But isnt it an assumption that the premise is correct? In other words, where is the evidence to support the premise?

If Clifford was right that “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” then it is wrong always, everywhere and by everyone to believe his statement… because there is no evidence for this statement… it’s a self-refuting statement.

The other problem with this statement is that there are many things that are concidered rational to believe, by rational people… and by believing that the (Clifford) statement is valid is cutting off one’s own rights to believe them, at the knees. i.e. belief in the outside world; belief in other minds; beliefs of past memories.

2

That’s what my father-in-law always said.
Of course I disagreed with him.
He said that when he was a famous preacher with his own radio show that what convinced him of religion was all the serious people that believed it.
Then he became an expert and stopped relying on authority figures, dove into the original texts and translations, etc. and decided it was all bunk.
I still disagreed with him. I’m pretty sure that either method is the wrong way to go about it.

3

Is this “evidentialism” another word for “empiricism”?

4

Insofar as I can puzzle out your point, wishing something is true doesn’t make it so, and being skeptical of a skepticism is not a paradox.

5

Is it true that there is no evidence of the premise? Believing, without evidence, that the child of a Nigerian general is willing to share his hidden money with you is going to get you into a world of hurt. Thus, the premise stands.

6

This is a bit like a question I asked back when I first arrived here, something to the effect: Don’t we have to first use Occam’s Razor in order to establish that Occam’s Razor itself is workable and reliable?. I think the answer is that, like empiricism(‘evidentialism’) we use it *because * it works; time and again, it has been demonstrated to yield results.

It may or may not be possible to philosophically/logically establish empiricism as sound, but that doesn’t stop us using it in the meantime. If it didn’t work very well, why would we bother?