Both the atheist and the theist are "trapped" (so to speak) in the logic box.

Both the atheist and the theist presuppose rationality, assuming putative truth claims are being made.

At the moment in this thread we are resting at what perhaps we can call "Logical Presuppositionalism." But logic is only one component of rationality. There are many other presuppositions as well for rational thought.

Maybe you can move this derail to the Presupp thread?

In essence, even the possibility of rational thought requires that deduction and induction correspond to some extent to the way the world actually is.

Yeah, I agree with you about the meaning of "validity," I'm just mirroring the language lagtight is using in order to focus on the main point I driving at.

I think what lagtight is really after here is the old Kantian question of how are synthetic a priori judgements possible.

Does Lagtight debate issues of biology, cosmology, medicine, etc. ... based on beliefs of peoples from 2000 years ago?

Which category would you put someone who would walk out of a movie (that he is attending by himself) because it bothered him to view a scene where two men were kissing?

Mortal sin
Tough crowd

Even though I'm not a Roman Catholic, I find a lot of deep and profound insights in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I also love G. K. Chesterton. Among current Catholic thinkers, I'm an admirer of Professor Peter Kreeft (emeritus professor of Philosophy at Boston College).

Have you read Pascal's Pensees? Brilliant, in my opinion.

I assume you've read some Aquinas. One of the most brilliant thinkers ever.

On the other hand, there are four great reasons to be Anglican:

1. The Anglican Church gave the world the King James Bible.

2. The Anglican Church gave the world The Book of Common Prayer

3. The Anglican Church gave the world C. S. Lewis

4. The Anglican Church "continues" to bless the world with N. T. Wright.

I'm not sure that's true, but if logic is a system we've developed to describe and analyse the world around us then I don't think it's a big mystery as to how we've got pretty good at it. It would just mean that the world, and the language used to describe it, has some kind of structure to it.

To some extent, I believe that Lagtight does do that.

Late in life, the great Empiricist philosopher David Hume conceded that Empiricsm ultimately must dead-end at Solipsism; we can't in the final analysis do more than describe our personal sense experiences.

Curiously, Hume paved the way for Existentialism, which paved the way for Postmodernism. Truth becomes PERSONAL NARRATIVE, rather than a claim about the world as it actually is.

I'm not tying myself to empiricism either. I think the mistake is that we try to build these philosophical structures and then attempt to insert them back into the past as though they were always necessities. But I think if we look at how we actually come to view and understand the world that's obviously false. It seems to me quite clear that an infant child starts to show signs of the ability to have rational thought long before they're capable of understanding epistemology. The project of epistemology for me is not to discover some "necessity of rational thought" that we always had, it's to improve the understanding we already we have.

I think it depends on cultural context. If you live in a society where it is common for couples to express affection by kissing or hugging each other in public, then this much discomfort from just seeing a homosexual couple kiss in a movie is likely to manifest in your behavior and attitudes towards gay people in your life as well. If someone's gay friends or acquaintances kiss their partners, will this person similarly be disgusted? Or would this then make it more difficult for them to have gay friends or acquaintances at all?

On the other hand, if you live in a more sexually repressed society (or are personally very sexually repressed), then this might be a manifestation of a more generalized uncomfortableness with public displays of affection. But in that case, watching movies where heterosexual couples kiss is more prurient than in our culture. I don't think heterosexual men have to be titillated by gay porn in order to not be homophobic. However, even here I think you should be wary of this response as sexually repressive societies are likely more repressive towards people with less common sexual desires, such as gay people.

Cite.

Nah, you are assuming that foundationalism is the only possible basis for knowledge and that absolute certainty is a requirement for rationality, both of which I at least reject.

Anyway, my point here is that Christian presuppositionalists claim that atheists cannot ground their belief in logic without God, but it seems here that you acknowledge that theists also cannot ground their belief in logic even with God.

My point is that if you are not going to be opposed to people turned on by unusual things, you should not be opposed to people being turned off by them It is not fair to expect that it either be turned on or neutrality. As long as those who are turned off do nothing that negatively impacts those who are turned on, they should not be criticized any more than their opposites.

I disagree with your point. I think this is an overly narrow view of morality, too focused on behavior to the detriment of character. Some people have a better moral character than others and so find it easier to do what is right. This isn't fair, but rather a result (in part) of moral luck. Thus, someone who finds expressions of homosexual sex/affection so revolting that they can't even stand watching a gay couple kiss will find it more difficult to act in a gracious manner towards gay people in everyday life. They can try to train themselves to overcome this part of themselves (which would be praiseworthy), but that is difficult and requires a level of self-awareness that most people lack. I think it is fine to criticize people for poor character as well as for poor actions.

As for your symmetry argument, I would have the same view about a homosexual person who found the thought of heterosexual sex/affection so revolting that they refuse to watch a portrayal of a heterosexual couple kissing. But in general I do not think our desires are morally neutral. Some sexual desires (eg pedophilia) are a sign of poor character. Similarly, I have no problem granting that some sexual aversions can also be a sign of poor character because of how they typically cause people to behave towards others.

But a lot here rests on your example being a movie where a gay couple is merely kissing. That is (in America) a fairly ordinary way that couples express affection towards each other and so having such a strong reaction is likely to detrimentally affect your relationships with other people in a way that having an aversion to a portrayal of gay sex would not.

I'm not sure how much you would have changed your replies if you had realized that I was pretty much using "kiss" as a euphemism.

In any case I submit that it is a superior person, not an inferior one, who favors the freedom to do something that he finds disgusting, as compared to someone who doesn't. We don't know what that second person would favor if he felt differently.

I've been clear all along that there is a relevant difference in my view between feeling revulsion towards a common public display of affection like kissing and a portrayal of sex, so your reticence here has not helpful.

Let's say someone doesn't like black people, but believes that they should be treated equally before the law. Compare them to a person who is indifferent towards race or likes black people and also believes that they should be treated equally before the law. This probably provides evidence that the prior person is more likely to support equality before law in other cases (I'm a bit skeptical of this as an account of political psychology, but whatever).

However, that is only one moral belief, and one that has relatively little impact on our day-to-day life (few people have any impact on how race and law interact). On the other hand, that person's dislike of black people, assuming he lives around black people, will likely have a noticeable impact on their day-to-day relationships with those around them. Thus, a cumulative moral view the dislike of black people would likely negatively outweigh the slightly increased chance that the prior person would favor equality before the law in other cases.

Similarly in our discussion, I think the impact on day-to-day behavior of someone who finds gay couple's kissing disgusting is likely to outweigh the benefit of the slightly increased likelihood of this person supporting people's right to do other things they find disgusting. So I don't agree that this is a sign of a superior person, but rather of someone with a defect of character that they have overcome in their political beliefs.

More generally, I think you are overvaluing the importance of political beliefs to morality relative to our moral character.

By what foundation do you reject foundationalism?

I would say that rationality requires God, but that being rational does not require a profession of belief in God.

Epistemologically, it rains on the just and unjust alike (so to speak).

No foundation at all.

Rationality doesn't require a belief in a god. Your claim otherwise rests on the supposed fact that non-theistic accounts of rationality cannot be shown to be sound and theistic accounts of rationality can. However, as you acknowledge here, theistic accounts of rationality also can't be shown to be sound. Instead, you use a circular argument to ground them. Guess what? Non-theistic accounts of rationality can also use circular arguments to ground rationality.

The people who the gay marriage proponent/disgusted by homosexuality are clearly superior to, are not all of the proponent/not disgusted, but only the subset of those people who would not be proponents if they were disgusted.

But that is probably most of them as evidenced by the fact that on other issues most people choose their feelings over their thoughts.

I'll try to find a flow chart that traces the highways and biways of various modern philosophies historically.

Or maybe I can recommend a textbook on modern philosophy that makes those connections, but you may not want to read a whole book to find that stuff out.

I actually agree with the bolded. To use an analogy that Van til used a time or three: Breathing requires air, but breathing does not require a belief in air.

Really?

I believe if a house is on fire the fire should be put out -> Am I a fireman?
I believe bad persons should go to jail -> Am I a policeman?
I believe taxes shouldnt be paid -> Am I a criminal?

A house was on fire, I put it out -> I am a fireman.
I unreveled a crime and put the criminal behind bars -> I am a Policeman.
I commited tax fraud -> I am a criminal.

Dunno the context on how all of this started, but there is quite a difference between believing something and acting out on that believe.