On Apr 16, 4:54 pm, SM <[email protected]> wrote: > > for if you rest upon the whole of that one source being reliable and > > true, then the determination that any single assumption made therein > > is untrue -- or even unreliable -- undermines every other assumption > > made therein.... > > I agree with this point, although I don't think you state it accurately, > because my source is not making assumptions; it claims to be stating > infallible fact. Thus, all that is written therein is reliable and true, > and if even one thing is found to be false, the reliability of the entirety > is suspect. My one assumption (faith), is that the claim of infallible > truth is in fact true. > Note that I did not claim that consequence "if even one thing is found to be false" -- for we are speaking of assumptions, which are necessarily unfalsifiable absent a true contradiction; rather, it is if one assumption is found to be unreliable that the bundle falls apart....
For example, consider again my above example of the lone footprint left on the path; if I assert without additional evidence that the footprint-leaver had green eyes, I make an unreliable assumption (even if there is no way to prove it false); and if I write out a list of characteristics which I believe the footprint-leaver to possess, and rest my reliance on the list as a whole being correct, then my inclusion of the green-eyed claim destroys the reliability of the entire list.... Now, if I happened to include on that list that the footprint-leaver had a foot, which is obviously true, that can not be used to bolster my claim of the footprint-leaver having green eyes (for people other than those with green eyes have feet as well, and those feet are far more numerous), nor does it restore the the entire list, which was a bundle destroyed by the unsupported assumption; the premise of the footprint-leaver having a foot would be true irrespective of the existence of the list which I wrote, and so the list is irrelevant to it (otherwise I could write 50 random facts on the list -- the sky is blue, the sun is hot, ducks quack, dogs bark, the Eiffel Tower is in Paris -- and claim that those 50 facts being true proves the 51st fact of the unknown footprint-leaver being green- eyed).... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "A Civil Religious Debate" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/a-civil-religious-debate?hl=en.
