No I don’t have my own blog or anything, though I do participate spasmodically but in a determined fashon at http://www.freeratio.org/

I’m gonna check out your site, too!

cheers,
s

I’m not sure what science you mean when you say that so much of science is not empirical. I’m surprised! please expand.
Mathematics is empirical, though, Rob. How do you think it came about? We invented it to describe our world, just as we do in science.

I think you misunderstand me on Bnonn’s lack of empathy of naturalism. Bnonn claims they don’t start with epistemology at all. They do. They claim that only natural explanations are sensible and he claims that the bible is the word of god. These are both epistemological claims. But Bnonn can’t see that the naturalsit claim is epistemological, just as he can’t see the exact same problems in his own. Indeed, he nicely mirrors the naivete of Dawkins in his statement that they just assume everything that they seek to prove. Dawkins would say the same of theism.

You are right to point out that I am question-begging as follows. Bnonn wants to think that there is a Platonic ideal called ‘regular’ floating somewhere out there and that we can compare the world to. There isn’t (indeed I think THIS is the philosophically naive view by today’s standards). The words ‘regular’ and ‘world’ are parasitic off one another. When we talk of the ‘world’ we mean the observable world that is ‘regular’. There has never been an ‘irregularity’ that we know is forever unknowable. In fact the real question is, how on earth do you test if the world is irregular?! How do we know which observable phenomena, if any, are unknowable as opposed to just being unknown presently?
Don’t get me wrong I understand why you find your worldview more satisfying but I just think that you can’t see the flaw:

For example take your statement “As I pointed out in my post above, ultimately we all take everything by faith — including Richard Dawkins.
………..
Dawkins and co of course make a similar step of faith, but it is much shallower and has much poorer ability to explain reality as you show above.”

This is completely contradictory. You rightly claim that, ultimately, we all take something as a given/by faith. But then you go on to COMPARE STEPS OF FAITH!! This is absurd. It is like saying…..well, it’s like saying exactly what you have just said! You have just claimed that “we all take steps of faith(as opposed to reason), but my step of faith is better because….[and you give a reason]“ !!!
Do you understand what I’m saying here? I do realise that you may want to play a “faith based on evidence”-esque card here. But, well, the naturalist can claim the same; that he has faith that naturalism explains everything, and he bases this faith on evidence.
This is the problem at the heart of your(pl) worldviews. You criticise naturalists for just taking things on faith; as given, and then think that it is somehow so much more erudite and wise to postulate unverifiable and unfalsifiable entities (to formulate an erudite and wise explanation) which you then have to take on faith anyway!
Cut out the middle man, dude! Lol. We’re both physicists. If a person claimed that there were invisible, undetectable monkeys flying round everywhere pushing all the atoms to make them do what they do you’d think they were insane. But what would you do if they claimed that the regular physics story was vacuous: “how do you know why the atoms move by the rules that they do, I have a much superior explanation as to why: monkeys!” The only thing to fall back on is verification, falsification. It is simply absurd to postulate undetectable monkeys to explain why the laws of physics are as they are. Besides, it only pushes the problem on: whence the monkeys? You would of course want to know why monkeys solve a problem at all; how they sensibly explain physics. But what disturbs me the most is that there is a real life situation thousands of times more challenging to you than these monkeys with a how story almost identical to your own. Other religions. Not only do they have a fully crystallised metaphysical explanation for things – as opposed to invisible monkeys – but their explanations look almost exactly like your own!

http://www.bethinking.org/truth-tolerance/intermediate/epistemology-what-is-it-to-know-part-1-of-3.htm

Andrew Fellows is the lecturer, and his full lecture set is here:

http://www.bethinking.org/search/author/Andrew%20Fellows

I know not of the fashions of philosophy. Yes I said fashions. But at the end of the day empiricism is no less that the posterchild of human endeavour.

Well, empiricism is certainly a useful tool for doing certain things in science. But it seems to be a very limited tookset as so much of science is no longer empirical and so much of what we call knowledge is not obtained via empirical means. Rather, much science is based in mathematical models. So I think empiricism has only limited utility.

I just don’t understand your inability to empathise(understand) with a Dawkins-esque worldview. It’s not rocket science. You think it’s obvious that the bible is the word of god, metaphysical naturalists think it’s obvious that nature is all their is. It isn’t hard.

You are right — Dawkin’s worldview is easy to understand. But when we critique anothers’ position, we don’t base the truthfulness of it upon the simplicity of it.

Islam may be easier to understand in part than Christianity — does that make it true? Of course not.

Newtonian physics may be simpler than Einsteinian physics — does that make it a better model of reality? Of course not.

How do we know that nature is regular? By looking at it.

Couple of points Simon. First, you are of course question begging. Or perhaps just being pragmatic. “It works, so get on with it.” But of course your worldview and experience is imposing upon you your answer. Another may see it quite differently. How do you then test it? Perhaps life is all illusory as per Eastern religions. Then why should we try to eliminate suffering if it is all illusion?

Second, it is intellectually lazy to just say “because it is”. I’m sure you don’t play by this rule in other parts of your life.

Third, Dawkins and his mates need to address this if they are to convince people such as myself. I would see my worldview as better than his — e.g. it has better explanatory power — and will continue to do so while his worldview continues to be so inadequate.

Why do you not go around worrying whether the bible was planted on earth by an extra-terrestrial pentruped named Sam?

As I pointed out in my post above, ultimately we all take everything by faith — including Richard Dawkins. As I understand it, ultimate reality begins with the Biblical God (ontology). This is the bedrock upon which all else is built. God creates the world and us and reveals this story thru the Scriptures which we take via a step of faith. This step of faith provides us with an epistemic basis for understanding the nature of the world. (Of course, if the Bible did not correspond with reality, then it would be a poor epistemic basis.)

Dawkins and co of course make a similar step of faith, but it is much shallower and has much poorer ability to explain reality as you show above.

There is a very interesting set of MP3 lectures (3 I think, possibly on epistemology) at http://www.bethinking.org by a chap from Labri (think: Francis Schaeffer) who takes a similar line to mine above but ties it in to the philosophies of Plato versus Aristotle. It is quite hard going but very very thought provoking (and I think sensible). Essentially, Plato starts with faith and gains certainly while Aristotle begins (like Descartes) with reason and ends up losng all certainty!

I just don’t understand your inability to empathise(understand) with a Dawkins-esque worldview. It’s not rocket science. You think it’s obvious that the bible is the word of god, metaphysical naturalists think it’s obvious that nature is all their is. It isn’t hard.

How do we know that nature is regular? By looking at it.
How do we know that the universe wasn’t created five minutes ago with the appearance of age? We don’t, and even by your own standards it would be unverifiable. So why talk about it? Why do you not go around worrying whether the bible was planted on earth by an extra-terrestrial pentruped named Sam? Same reason.

And of course, empiricism (at least in the form Dawkins could be interpreted to hold) is really dead in terms of modern philosophy. It’s been dead a long time. It’s dead because it is a failure as an epistemology—a manifest failure.

Empiricists are tied to the ‘metaphysic’; the observation, that empiricism has been supremely successful.