What I'm not advocating here is belief in God, I'm advocating something along the lines of clear thinking about the issue. That means thinking a step back from your ideological commitments. Now, like I said I was a theology major so I learned quite a bit about the commitments that entangles the thinking of folks like Aquinas. But I think studying it, and studying it from the view of an outsider looking in, also gave me the ability to study the ideological commitments underlying my own thinking.

I think it's our duty as responsible philosophers to be able to step back from our commitments in any direction. We live in the 21st century and to argue with some primacy of reason is going to get you stuck in an 18th-19th century philosophy.
I don't disagree at all there, again, I do not refute the possibility of the unknown or unexplained, but I will not accept it as fact, or what is most likely until it is no longer unknown or unproven. I'm perfectly willing to hear arguments in favor of God. If they fail to prove God, or provide a strong enough inductive argument to make me believe it is more likely he exists than not, I will not believe in it. The day somebody can prove to me beyond a reasonable doubt, I'll be the first one to pull my fingers out of my ears and go say I'm wrong. Until that happens, I'll stick with athiesm.


To be clear, I was reffering to the fallacy of relevance known as wishful thinking, which is to attempt to use what you would really like to be true as evidence that it IS true. Togo back to your fememnist example, The mention of things that conlict with that view make you sick, therefore that view is correct. That is a logical fallacy, the premise has no affect on the conclusion whatsoever. Making assumptions or wanting to believe something is not the fallacy of wishful thinking unless you attempt to use it as a premise in an argument.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant when you asked why we were prioritizing one sense over another. It sounded like you were trying to say that your stomache ache which showed only what you WANT to be true is of equal importance to observing a fact which supports a conclusion. In this case, the two are not equal, as one is describing what you want to be true, which is the fallacy of wishful thinking and therefore irellevant, and the other is relevant observable fact. If that's not what you meant, my bad, I tend to skim at 2 AM, and ocassionally the train of thought derails at this hour as well.

Now, suppose I tell you that I am sad. By any sense besides an internal sense, there really is no way of knowing that I am sad.

So when I say: "Listen, the way you were being so aggressive in your last post hurt my feelings just now and now I'm sad."

Could you challenge it as wrong? If you told me: "Sorry, pal, I cannot see your sadness. Wishful thinking." I'd be quite perplexed
Nope, that's not the fallacy of wishful thinking. If you were to say that my post was WRONG because it made you sad, that would be the fallacy of wishful thinking. (on that note, apologies if you actually were offended, I'm usually an even bigger ass at this time of night) Much like a religious person saying "because I want to believe in God really bad, God must exist" is the fallacy of wishful thinking. "The bible says God exists in spite of any anti-God argument, I want to trust the bible, therefore God exists". THAT is the fallacy of wishful thinking. So to clarify what I meant in my attack on blind faith, faith based on what you want to trust, or what you want to beleive, or what you want to be true does not in any way prove that what you put your faith in is true.

Their seeing is their proof.
Their seeing is why they as an individual believe. If they are the only one who can see it, and anyone else can go look at the same spot on the ground and do NOT se the track, it has not proven the deer exists. If I told you I saw an alien in your back yard, and you went and looked and saw nothing, everyone you know looked and saw nothing, but I absolutely insisted I could see it right ther right now, would you say I have proven the alien's existance? Or would you call the nearest asylum and ask them if they came up one short in their last head count? I may very well have jsutified my belief in the alien; however, I have not proven its existence.

We cannot scientifically prove that Ben Franklin existed. Scientific proof is either observational or experimental, Ben Franklin is neither. A theory of Ben Franklin's existence is unfalsifiable, so it would fail Popper's criterion (until we develop a time machine). His bones, his documents, and tons of paper pointing to his existence scientifically suggest his existence, but it doesn't prove it.
Correct, you can't deductively prove it. Thsi is where we get into an inductive argument. Based on the evidence, it is siginificantly more likely that he existed than not. I don't believe we'll ever have a real deuctive argument to prove or disprovea divine being, at least not until we as a species are a hell of alot smarter than we are now. What we CAN do is pose inductive arguments. Based on all relevent evidence, it seems to me, more likely that God does not exist. Again, this does not prove it, to say it did would be committing the fallacy of wishful thinking. SOmething like BF's existence has so much supporting evidence, you'd almost have to be an idiot to take the bet that he didn't exist. With something like God, when I say I believe the evidence is in favor of no God, I don't mean it's an obvious choice with overwhelming evidence in favor of my view, because it isn't. If my evaluation of the evidence suggests a 50.0000000000000001% chance that god does not exist, and a 49.9999999999999999% chance he does, Inductively speaking, I have justified my belief. Someone else who interprets the evidence differently may comp to the conclusion that I got thos two numbers mixed up, in which case they have inductively justified their beliefs.

Can we prove that actual deer exist deductively?

When you've done that, then we can bring that back to the analogy.
I'll use two proofs, one for materialists and one for idealists. Dualists would be satisified with either. Ths is based on what we DEFINE existence as, as we don't actually know. We can only deductively prove things in terms of other things we assume we know.


Materialist
If something can be observed by the senses, and is made of matter -> It Exists.
I can see, smell, hear, feel, and taste a deer.
A deer is composed of various chemeical elements which we recognize as matter
_________________
Deer exist.

Idealist
If we can percieve asomething as a bundle of sensory data -> it exists.
We can percieve the appearance, scent, feeling, sound, and taste of a deer.
_________________
Deer exist.

I'm aware that these are very general proofs, and the premesis could be clarified, but this isn't a thread about that, so I won't go into tremendous detail on it.