I'd be mildly surprised if Duffee's example wasn't intended to be (mutatis mutandis) exemplary of a/his general approach.

I don't see the relevance of your first paragraph, so I'll ignore that one.

As for the last paragraph, I very much doubt acceptance of the Bible tends to happen before acceptance of God. I think most people who accept biblical accounts are told directly and/or indirectly before learning the bible (often at a young age) that God is real. I have little doubt that, insofar as it supports religion, the bible tends to be read apologetically, that is... under the assumption that God is real and that the bible must therefore somehow (fundamentally/literally/allegorically/historically/mistranslatedly or whatnot) be true.

I don't think this way of attaining knowledge is in any way or form unique to religion.

Of course - this was why I pointed out the omission. In fact it is so glaring, I doubt Duffee et al don't already include such a possibility in their thought process. However, when it comes to religious beliefs in particular (perhaps others as well), I notice people claiming that the 'witness' was lying [and we should not believe them] or were telling the truth [and we should believe them]. The alternate option of they thought they were telling the truth [but we should still not believe them] is not often mentioned.

For example, Lewis' Trilemma (Lunatic, Liar or Lord), has at least one missing option: Legend (very handy that there is a suitable L-word for consistency!).

Actually, that was the way I used to do it. I'd establish the authority of the scriptures first, through prophetic confirmation, various historical arguments, etc. The basis was a verse by Paul (in Romans?):

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of god.

Speak the Word first. Faith follows.

It always starts with an open bible on someones lap. That's how I was convinced too, many years ago, and if you asked me then if I believed in God, I really have no idea what I'd tell you.

I’m not disputing the bolded. But where do you think, ultimately, the telling originated from? Maybe the revealed word of God, i.e., the Bible?

It’s omitted, probably because most think of it as a non-relevant issue since it's already factored into the equation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credible_witness
In the law of evidence, a credible witness is a person making testimony in a court or other tribunal, or acting otherwise as a witness, whose credibility is unimpeachable. A witness may have more or less credibility, or no credibility at all. In the common law system, the term 'credible witness' may be used generally, to refer to testimony, or for the witnessing of certain documents.

Several factors affect witnesses' credibility. A credible witness is "competent to give evidence, and is worthy of belief." Generally, a witness is deemed to be credible if they are recognized (or can be recognized) as a source of reliable information about someone, an event, or a phenomenon.

In the United States, such a witness is "more than likely to be true based on his/her experience, knowledge, training and appearance of honesty and forthrightness...." Some factors for determining the credibility of testimony in U.S. courts include: (1) the witness had personal knowledge, (2) he or she was actually present at the scene, (3) the witness paid attention at the scene, and (4) he or she told the whole truth. The probative value of a credible witness is not a required element in any criminal case. However, credibility is always a factor in civil cases. The number of witnesses does not matter for credibility: "The question for the jury is not which side has more witnesses, but what testimony they believe." Only the "quality or power" of believability matters.

I have noticed a trend in RGT lately towards employing legal definitions. And while I'm an avid "law dabbler" and find that subject fascinating, it is an approach one should be very careful with.

First of all law systems differ greatly, and the underlying assumptions of such a system are important to deal with. The text you are linking fits mostly an "english common law" system, or a system where it is assumed that judges pass law and truth is best determined by peers (jury). But I for example, am raised in country with a "civil law" system, the underlying assumption is that representatives of the people pass law and truth is best determined by experts (judges). There is far more to these jurisprudences than I explain here, but this is not a thesis on legal systems.

However, as we can see merely from these two very simple examples legal systems are a bit taxonomical and arbitrary. Thus they don't really explain much in and of themselves, and we can't therefore readily explain concepts of truth merely by referring to legal definitions (we would essentially be saying that things are right because we say so). On the contrary... using legal definitions opens up the door that is philosophy of law, which would again merely give us yet more problems to resolve.

I can pose such a question/problem right now:
Q: Would you be willing to accept the bible as being a false account , if a randomly selected 12-man group of your peers found this to be the case?

I didn’t mean it as an insistence of what we should do, but more as an example of what we do already, outside the legal system, when evaluating subjective testimony. In other words, as humans we entitle ourselves, or at least I do, with the right to believe what others are relating based on how we perceive their credibility, or how believable we find them. I get that’s a frustrating state of affairs for atheists, because it’s essentially giving theists a non-contestable trump card, but that’s just the way it is.
I don’t know what you mean by “false account” but generally, no, that’s a personal issue I don’t grant others the right to decide.

Plus, obv., we need an account of "credible witness" whether we have a jury-based system or a judge-based system. What counts as "credible" is likely fairly similar in both cases as the notion of what counts as justice and fairness are likely fairly similar. So tames entire post doesn't really say too much, in the way of argument.

I don't really believe "false account" was that difficult to understand, but it's not really important either way. We can at least ascertain that the legal definiton of "credible witness" holds no value to you, so there was no use in quoting it.

That's the tricky thing about law. Truth in law isn't about what you or me find to be true, it is about what the system finds to be true. Obviously things like these are exactly what philosophy of law deals with, which is the reasoning behind my former reply: Invoking legal definitions resolves nothing, it merely shifts the debate towards justification of law.

Well, since the discussion died out.. time to make a point.

We humans assess via comparison. Using observation we put things into mental boxes marked with their respective qualities. If it is similar enough we put it into the same box, if it isn't... we make a new box. This is exemplified very well people suffering from Korsakoff's syndrome, and who suffer from anterograde amnesia. Unable to form new memories, any phenomena repeatedly gets valued and compared to schema existing prior to the syndrome taking effect.

A quasi-philosopher might protest with something ala "but what if there was only one phenomena, would you not observe it". And the biologist would reply; "Well, you wouldn't exist in such a world".

Then the rubber chicken. Picked in part because I find unwillingness to explain how properties of God are deduced to be quite funny. Consider how important it is for us humans to explain how we came to learn something. "And then I... ", "that's when....", "and we saw that...", "and I could hear it man!"... and maybe not the least... the all-encompassing "how do you know that?"... which, if we were to summarize RGT with 5 words... is probably a good candidate.

Yet for all this, a lot of very intelligent people make great efforts to avoid discussing how the properties of God are deduced, focusing instead on debating how they could be possible. Duffee makes a good exception, by explaining it truthfully and pointing towards testimony. Testimony is certainly something we must consider, because testimony is an integral part in enabling us to discuss this in the first place - without it, no human would ever have taught us anything. Also, if we accept that historical claims are possible... that means we implicitly accept that testimony can be valid. Though, certainly not that any testimony of past events is equally valid... as has actually been suggested on this very forum by posters wishing to defend the veracity of biblical claims.

So testimony should never go unchallenged. That "testimony" can be good proof doesn't mean "a testimony" is good proof. I doubt (on second thought, make that "I am certain") Duffee would accept any account of prophetic insight as true. He might make a tautology out of it, claiming prophetic insight means true... but that's doesn't resolve anything, but merely shifts definitions.

I don't doubt for a second that for the believer, God has properties. I think it would be interesting to have them explained, and not least - hearing the how in how the knowledge of said properties were attained and the why in coming to to accept them. I mean... I would have to demand to be able to differentiate something from a rubber chicken for something as mundane as raking my lawn. I think it is fairly trivial then, to demand the same for a concept that holds me to keep the sabbath holy.

Can you restate this? I must not be reading it correctly because your analogy here isn't making any sense at all.

Three points:

1) Read in a literal sense, this statement is not true. It just plays less of a role in the type of discussion going on in a RGT forum. In the following, I focus on the catholic side of things, but similar distinctions exist in all christian denominations, though sometimes under different headings and subdividions. Classically, a university theology faculty is broadly divided into four sections: systematic, biblical, practical and historical theology. Under systematic theology you'll find at the very least two subdivisions, the scope of which can be expressed as two questions: What do we believe? How are we justified in believing it? The former is discussed in Dogmatics, the latter under fundamental theology (sometimes called Apologetics).
Dogmatics itself deals with a number of tractatus; among them: trinity teaching, christology, pneumatology, theism. Those deal specifically with WHAT we know about god (and how we know that). Additional tractatus include Creation teaching (not Creationism), Eschatology, Soteriology etc., which also relate to the question of what we know in varying degrees.

So the point that you feel that there is not enough discussion (or even evasion of discussion) about what we know about God and how is merely a statement of your perspective. Dogmatics is certainly one of the main fields of theology.

2) Read in a more liberal sense, you're less wrong - for a simple reason: The answer in a very strict sense is not very hard or interesting. If we take god to be something at least remotely similar to id quo maius cogitari nequit, what we know about God is rather quickly stated. The more interesting questions pertain to the relevance that has to questions such as the PoE, Salvation, Trinity etc. A rather interesting field is also Pneumatology.

3) That your impression is that the debate is focussed more on how properties can be possible, is due to the forums or the general dynamic of atheist-theist debate in general: Often it's much more engaging for both sides to discuss whether this-or-that is a reasonable/defendable assertion about god, rather than on what grounds the theist believes to be justified in claiming it. Catholicism traditionally recognizes three avenues of gaining knowledge about God: scripture, tradition, and nature. An atheist will likely dismiss all of them as inconclusive. Hence, almost inevitably, the discussion will shift away from WHAT we believe to questions such as the degree to which we can take scripture as evidence etc.

I think you have established well through the years that I am incapable of expressing myself cogently, so sadly the answer is no.

On a more serious note. If it's really that difficult, ignore it and just focus on the rest of the post. There is no use in cluttering the thread with three page tangents.

The rest of it I just find odd.

Good, with that out in the open, we saved ourselves a three-page debate on irrelevant matters.

God is of course a broad concept. I have never gotten the impression you and Duffee believe in similar concepts of God. They might not clash (if you are even religious, I don't know), but that is more due to ambiguity than compatibility. With that out of the way, we can move on...

1.) "What and why" is not a good approach. Apologetics can prove anything. A good approach to knowledge is "what, how and why not".

2.) The danger of this approach is that you are always affirming what you believe, challenging only why you came to believe it. I think that is dubious. Again, it seems like a result of asking "why" instead of "why not".

3.) I don't think it is limited to debate.

To the christian mind, this is not really a meaningful question. "Why not" is easily answered by reference to the three ways in which the christian gains knowledge of god: Revelation (bible), tradition, nature.

So: Why not a rubber chicken: Because the Bible tells otherwise. If you now (as you did with Duffee) ask: "Why do you consider the bible reliable evidence/testimony", we're already in a different discussion.

If it is "easily answered", I doubt there would even be a PhD-programme for you to attend.

And no, we're not in a different discussion. At the most basic level, this thread never limited itself to the Christian God (and certainly not the Biblical God)... so the question as to "why the Bible?" is extremely central. But even if such a limit was in effect, trying to devalue questioning the Bible's value as a source seems iffy. Certainly the most central aspect of any biblically-based belief must be if the Bible is divinely inspired.

Well, a muslim will obviosly not accept the bible - but I don't expect him to. To the extend that the respondent of your question is a christian, however, "why the bible" is not a very tricky question. Christianity considers itself a religion gaining its insight about god from one main source: the bible. Some denominations (such as catholicism) add tradition and nature as other sources of divine revelation. So asking "Why does a christian accept the bible as source for divine revelation" ultimately becomes something like "Why does a christian accept christianity."

Not "if" but "in what sense".

This is essentially what MB often does. From an atheist PoV it sounds like a perfectly legit question to ask "But how do you know that the bible is true/inspired (in whatever sense)". For a christian, this is not a meaningful question, as he would lose the basis of his particular christian belief if he lost his faith in the inspiredness of the bible. So to him, MBs questions means essentially "How do you know that god exists." Which is, of course, a meaningful question, but one for which the christian will - ultimately - reply "Because I believe in the biblical testimony telling me he does".

That's why I mentioned hermeneutical vs. vicious circularity above: Christian arguing in this point eventually becomes circular (more or less necessarily so). The question is whether that is a problem (vicious circle) or not.

Any argument of knowledge is "circular", because you have to start with the notion that knowledge is possible (anything else would be a paradox obviously), and if you try to justify knowledge you will have to return to this notion. So I disregard that as fairly trivial, and assume knowledge must be assessed on other terms.

Apparently you're not listening. It is being "assessed on other terms." Namely, terms such as conforming with scripture, or tradition or nature.

But be that as it may - I figure that if you wanted to have some constructive debate on this, you'd have engaged by now. So I'll let you have the last word and dismiss yet another post as "fairly trivial", and "short and obtuse".

The reason why I chimed in was to put this statement into perspective: "a lot of very intelligent people make great efforts to avoid discussing how the properties of God are deduced, focusing instead on debating how they could be possible." Having done that, it's up to you to take something away from it or not.

I can only assume you misunderstood my post. I wrote a reply explaining why I haven't considered "circular" as some sort of criticism. I wasn't (willfully at least) hand-waving anything aside.

As for testimony, without testimony we would have been able to be able to develop from "baby" to "adult capable of writing in this thread". That's just how humanity works. We learn mostly socially. I can't throw testimony under the bus without throwing pretty much everything I know under the bus.

Assessment of specific testimony becomes the name of the game (not "is testimony credible" but "is this testimony credible") and since we apparently agree on this - I don't really see what the steam is about.

Ok, then I misunderstood.

Let us return to this point. Would you say that these methods of obtaining (I use obtaining so we don't go into a tangent on knowledge itself) knowledge regarding God could disprove God...

b)... in the relative sense, as in the God you now believe in is the actual God, and the God of someone who reads the bible in a manner you do not agree with believes in a false God?
a) ... in the conceptual sense, as in it could be discovered that the God of the Bible should be rejected in favor of an alternate version
c) ... in the absolute sense, as in the methods could show that "God exists" is false.

(and yes, all these crossover into eachother. Regard them as purely taxonomical).