No. Although the nature of the justifications I offer, and the reasons for them not being considered to justify what I believe, will vary of course.

Ok, so why do you have appear to have a problem with afshins justification then?

I mean, Im not sure what you are getting at with this paragraph? Are you saying that you cant accept his justification as reason for YOU to believe? You seem to be saying that the only justification you would accept as valid for afshin, ( that is, afshins own justification for believing ) is "I am deluded" ?

Yes

No, not the 'only' reason, but one possible explanation. Another is that he was paid to say what he said, or that he did it for a bet, or that he's pretending for some reason. All of those are more likely to me than that god really tapped him on the shoulder.

If I justify something to myself, is that now justified to you?

I think Afshin has justified his current beliefs to himself through what he believes he experienced, does that mean that I should consider his beliefs justified? I don't, so I clearly have a problem with his justifications. On the other hand, if he is delusional and imagined that god tapped him on the shoulder and spoke to him because of some kind of psychotic episode, then that would justify what he believes for me.

So yes, we'd all agree that he was justified, but for completely different reasons, so what exactly has been accomplished?

If he's justified what he believes to himself for one reason (visit from god), and I think he's justified for a completely different reason (being delusional), what does it really mean to say that he's justified?

Again, you are mixing up truth of beliefs with justification for beliefs.

If you can justify your beliefs to yourself without needing to justify it to others, so can afshin.

So afshin is only justified in his belief if his justification ( to himself ) is "I am deluded" or " I am lying" or "I was paid for a bet"?

Does this apply to you and your beliefs too, from my perspective?

I don't believe that I am, I think you are misunderstanding my issue.

Yes, we have both justified our beliefs to ourselves. But, have we justified it to anyone else?

I may be perfectly justified, because of personal experiences I've had, to believe that the universe will end tomorrow. It's irrelevant whether or not it's true, only that I can justify it to myself. Now, do you consider my belief justified?

I believe it justified to you

Yes, but is it justified to you?

If not, then what does it mean to say 'MB's belief about the universe ending is justified'? Surely, it has to be qualified in some way to have meaning? I think if you phrase it like I have there, it means that other people accept the justifications and share the belief, if not, then they don't think that my belief is justified regardless of how I feel about it. Or, just to confuse the issue, they may agree that my fears are justified but have a completely different theory about why the universe is going to end. So they'd say that my fears are justified without necessarily agreeing with the reasons I used to justify it to myself...

You and I have not always gotten along but I want to try to approach something related to this discussion with a fresh start.

In all sincerity, what is your goal in your communications on this site? I could list some possibilities, but they may be off target.

-You do not believe in God and you wish to convince others that they should not believe in God also as it is the only rational position.

-You do not believe in God and you wish to demonstrate to others that your position is rationally defensible, i.e. they cannot compel you to change your mind.

-You do not believe in God and you wish to understand how anyone could come to a different opinion.

-Something else entirely.

This is significant because the justification required is dependent on the goal sought.

Hey, sure, that's ok with me.

I think all three of those are true-ish but I'd add to them that since I started posting here, I now have a strong desire to learn, understand and be able to use Philosophical arguments and (no laughs here please) to improve my grasp of the use of Logic. I wasn't joking when I said that posting here has been a life changing experience if only because it made me realise that I was a somewhat delusional about how intelligent I am (I think I was engaging in the Dunning Kruger cognitive bias because I'd never really been exposed to genuinely intellectual minds before, or just didn't recognise them for what they were), I now have a much more realistic idea of where I stand in the intelligence stakes. Also, I enjoy debating stuff, always have. No idea why.

Not sure how that applies to what I understand by saying that something is 'justified' though. I think it doesn't mean anything on it's own and needs to be qualified.

My take on your position was that afshin was unjustfied , to himself, as well as you, in believing in god. Is that not what you are saying? Obviously you dont believe that his justifications are good reasons for his beliefs, but he does.

Hey? No, he's clearly (if we take what he's saying at face value) justified it to himself.

My point is that he hasn't justified it to me, or that I don't accept his justifications, so what does it mean to say 'Afshin is justified in what he believes'. If I agree with that, it makes it look like I accept his justifications which I don't.

Yes, obv.

And I'm minded of the thread in which people were asking you to reply to zumby's question about which of the statements you found morally wrong and it took a while for you to construct an answer and when you did you changed the statements so you could answer them as you thought they required answering.

These may just be isolated misunderstandings as with the post immediately above where you think that agreeing that Afshin is justified in his belief means that you accept his justification and that's not the case.

and just to be clear I'm not saying you're being deliberately evasive. I think you occasionally fail to take questions at face value and in failing to do so over-complicate them

Why don't you explain what you think it means for someone to be justified in believing something, because I think you've been working under a different definition than a few other people. Not to put words in your mouth, but it seems like you have trouble believing that people can be justified in believing something which is false, or something which you think is false.

We are not debating truth here. Someone can be justified in believing something you know is wrong. More than likely we all believe something that is not right, it doesn't mean that we are not justified in believing it, necessarily.

This doesn't give us free reign to say every belief is justified, obviously, but there are many exceptions, Afshin being one of them. Admitting Afshin is justified doesn't commit you to his belief or at all make him more credible to you personally, and I think that's what makes you tentative. Again, not to put words in your mouth, you can explain what you think.

I did give a definition earlier ITT to help with this, there was no direct response to it. Something is justified when there are 'good and legitimate' reasons for it. It also means 'declared or made righteous in the sight of God' apparently but I'm assuming that we're not using that definition. 'Good' is a subjective term and 'legitimate' means 'conforming to the law or to rules' or 'able to be defended with logic or justification; valid'.

It's not very helpful that the definition for justification includes legitimate and the definition for legitimate includes justification...

If Afshin is presenting reasons that he considers good and legitimate for what believes (he believes that the Christian god touched him on the shoulder and spoke to him and now he's a Christian), then his belief is justified, at least to himself. But, if I don't agree that his reasons are good and legitimate, then can I agree that he is justified? It isn't justified to me, so I don't think so.

What would justify his beliefs to me, are reasons that he himself is unlikely to accept as good and legitimate. So, I don't think that the sentence 'Afshin is justified to believe what he does' really means anything unless the listener agree with his reasons. And to say 'Afhisn justifies his beliefs to himself, kinda goes without saying.

If I don't accept that Afshin's reasons are good and legitimate, then I can't agree that he's justified in believing what he does, even if I accept that those are the reasons he's used to justify it to himself, or that he would offer if asked to justify what he believes.