Over the years, I’ve met many self-described atheists who insist that they do not need to justify their atheism. They say things like this: “If you’re going to make a claim about what exists, it needs to be justified.” By implication, if you make a claim about what does not exist, you are somehow exempted […]
evidentialism
Heaven and the occasional evidentialist
In “Books on heaven and evidence for heaven” I offered a response to individuals who have challenged the legitimacy of my book on heaven by demanding that I provide evidence for heaven (that is, evidence to satisfy them). I gave the following illustration: “Imagine … that I write a book titled Electronic Voting and the Crisis of Democracy. In the […]
Half-baked evidentialist epistemology
Faithful readers of this blog will probably know that one of my readers, Jeff, has been criticizing my position that testimony can be a properly basic source of justified belief and knowledge (absent defeaters to the truth of the testimony). On Jeff’s view, testimony is always non-basic and is only rationally assented to based on […]
Should assertions be supported with evidence?
Hi everyone. I’ve got about ten minutes in between meetings. Sadly, that is not enough time to address all the comments in the blog that require addressing. And it certainly isn’t time to offer the full response to Stephen Maitzen. And it definitely isn’t time to fulfill my promise to Jerry Rivard. But it is […]
Doing your belief inventory (or how not to be a fundamentalist)
John has recently commened the following advice in the blog when it comes to belief: “You can (and should) give weights to your beliefs. If you only have 20% justification, then evidence that approaches 20% should be sufficient to force you to at least reexamine your belief. In fact, if you’re using a belief with […]
Extraordinary cars require extraordinary acceleration
Silverbullet sternly informs me: “We ask that you support extraordinary claims with extraordinary evidence.” This claim is so familiar, indeed, well-worn, that it is like putting on a pair of old 501 jeans. The only problem is … it doesn’t fit very well. And why is that? What’s wrong with this delicate and eminently reasonable demand for […]
