There is nothing in these two quotes that contradict eachother...

Theistic belief is uncomfortable to scientific empiricists who don’t give much credence to subjective testimony, and naturalists who reject all species of supernatural claims. So the uncomfortable-ness with theist claims arises from the conflict with one’s epistemological standards and one’s assumed worldview, not the claims themselves.

All I meant was that the more the claim conflicts with my pre-established beliefs, the more emphasis I place on the claimant’s credibility. And vice versa; the less the claim conflicts with my pre-established beliefs, the less I’m looking at the claimant’s sincerity.

For example, if my girl friend told me that she ran into an old friend of mine, I’d just believe it since I have no reason to suspect she just makes up such stories, and because the claim is not in conflict with the rest of my beliefs. Now if I held the belief that said friend was deceased, I have a conflict with believing her testimony, and would probably begin an inquisitional process. But suppose after all that she maintains it was him, even after being shown his obituary. I’m basically left with believing her and consequently that people do return from the dead, or not believing her and maintaining my background belief that people don’t return from the dead. (The latter belief based on past precedent more than anything else.) But in either case the grounds for the consequent is her believability, that is, how honest, forthright and sincere I find her.

She can also be highly sincere and yet still mistaken. In fact, I would place this option well above the others - and yet this option seems to be the one most often left behind when discussing theistic beliefs.

duffee, that wasn't meant critically. My whole point was that usually, we associate circularity in reasonings with being unfounded, inconclusive, unpersuasive etc. My point was simply to draw attention to the fact that there are different kinds of circularity and that the one we usually find to be problematic - the circulus vitiosus - is not the only kind of circular reasoning there is.

I don't know, is it?

I don't yet, I am waiting for you to tell me whether it is a rubber chicken or not.

That's very nice. Remember the old story from psychoanalysis. The patient thinks he is a grain of corn and he is afraid that the chicken will eat him. The doctor finally convinces him that he is a human being and not a grain of corn. The next day the patient returns and is terrified. "What's wrong? I though you know know that you're not a grain of corn?", the doctor says. And the patient replies "Yes, I know. But does the chicken know it?" God is of course the chicken.

How would believing her to be highly sincere, yet mistaken, differ from not believing her and maintaining a background belief that people don't return from the dead?

You left out the last (and very important) sentences of Duffe's post, so the context of your quote from Beacoupfish is wrong and your question is irrelevant to the actual conversation that took place.

Duffe specified that her sincerity was ultimately what mattered, which obviously paints Beaucoup's question in a completely different light than your partial quote.

Just talked to God. I was told that God is, in fact, a rubber duck. I am backing this up with solid evidence: my private conversation with God.

You might find this hard to believe, but once history has obscured my writings with a few hundred years of rewrites and interpretations, hopefully you'll see that I did in fact have the conversation I said I did.

it's going to take more than a few rewrites to make the gospel of the duckie seem as profound as the other one

You're trying way too hard.

Are posts like these even necessary?

You selectively quote and thus miss the point and generate noise. I found Beaucoupfish' question interesting and I have also appreciated Duffee's sincerity in this thread. Thus I would enjoy seeing it responded to properly by Duffee, not hidden away in a misrepresented noise.

Now, if we can just move on - seeing that happen is hopefully still a possibility.

Well I'm a freshly minted minister with something to prove, so you just wait until I get a ghost writer!

The Great Rubber Chicken is a comedic prop of which no funnier can be thought.
Obviously, a real Great Rubber Chicken would be funnier than an imaginary one.
Therefore, the Great Rubber Chicken exists.

Although personally I'm a big proponent of presuppositionalist fowlery.

The very experience of comedy requires the Great Rubber Chicken.

1. By "god", I take that as equivalent to Hashem ( = YHWH Elohim ~ "G-d" ), the Creator of "heaven and earth", so no.

2. The testimony of Yochanan ( "John" ) as recorded in Jn 1:1-3, Jn 1:18 is clear. I trust this testimony based on the penultimate verse of this gospel in Jn 21:24 where the "we" therein stood for the "brothers" who fellowshipped with Yochanan in the Messianic communities where this account/"gospel" circulated. Jn 1:18 says that nobody has seen Hashem but He is revealed through the Miltha (Aramaic) ~ Logos = "Word"; Yeshua HaMashiach ( "Christ Jesus" ) is the Incarnate Miltha = Incarnate Word. It is not merely this testimony, but the testimonies in the Tanakh and of followers of YHWH Elohim and Yeshua HaMashiach that are sufficient.

Testimony is still used today in the highest courts of law throughout the world ( albeit based on various interpretations of "law" ) and is foundational to the understanding of the Tanakh and the Brit Chadashah ~ "New Testament".

Good questions would be "How does one see G-d?" ( answer is given in Jn 1:18 ) and "How does one follow Yeshua, the Messiah?" Difficult questions would be "Is Jesus G-d?" ( the correct answer is not simple ) and "By what means is Spiritual knowledge obtained?"

You do not see any difference between deliberate deception, and what is often described as an "honest mistake"?

Duffe seems to, hence why I asked why the missing option.

I don't see the difference in results. As duffee phrases it, he either has the option of believing her testimony despite his background beliefs or his background beliefs despite her testimony.

That he might hold additionally that she's genuine in her mistaken testimony doesn't materially alter the options available to him or introduces a third one (at least not that I can see). By your phrasing of "this option seems to be the one most often left behind", it appeared you suggest that the two options lined out by duffee are indeed not all options avaiable to him.

Maybe she is mistaken. Maybe I’m mistaken believing he is dead. Maybe I’m mistaken believing people don’t return from the dead. They’re all options. I guess I’m just missing why this is an issue.

Lots of awesome words in that post. I wish you could see them through my eyes because all those words just look like all the words that other religions use. Without their context, meaning and learned associations, they literally mean nothing to me, and prove even less.

Next witness.

Proof once again that Mightboosh's interest in understanding new information is severely limited. If it doesn't already support what he believes, he publicly shows his persistent ignorance by proudly proclaiming his ignorance about the content AND his unwillingness to take the time to learn.

Why knowledge and truth matters? Hand+cooking plate serves as decent enough example, I would say. Sure, some claim nihilism or that anything might be true (because you can't prove it wrong)... but you still don't see them walking into doors while rejecting the utility of door handles.

If you need some earthshattering absolute that permeates the universe, I think that is supposed to be your end of the stick.

Who cares about the actual results?!
Obviously they are important for each specific case, but each result is not particularly important on a case by case basis than figuring out how we come to believe truth claims in general (what do you believe vs why do you believe it?). In a less dramatic scenario, the friend being out of town for example (rather than dead!), a very sincere testimony could be much more convincing than an obviously deceitful one, in which case it has a real effect. When you compare your results with your process of inquisition, you learn how to improve that process. I think it is fair to claim that there will be a significant difference in how you view the future claims of someone who was trying to deceive you over someone that was mistaken.

Ground-consequent statements aren’t cause-effect claims. When I say, “I believe Bob is drunk because he’s stumbling around,” I’m not implying the cause of Bob’s stumbling around is his drunkenness. Of course there are other causal options for his stumbling around, like goofing around or having a stroke. What I’m conveying is the ground for my consequent belief, i.e., the reason why ‘I believe’ he is stumbling around.

So in regard to why theists don’t believe God is a rubber chicken, they don’t believe he is because they believe the testimony about God in the Bible (Old and New Testament). And they believe the testimony about God in the Bible because they find the claimants credible and authoritative. In other words, what theists believe about God is arrived at in the same manner as their belief in God: they don’t believe God exists and consequently believe what the Bible says about him; they believe the Bible and consequently believe God exists.