The Existence of a God or Gods is [Currently] Unknowable to Man

A. I would like to begin with a quote from Nietzsche concerning knowledge:“The pride connected with knowing and sensing lies like a blinding fog over the eyes and senses of men, thus deceiving them concerning the value of existence. For this pride contains within itself the most flattering estimation of the value of knowing.” (“On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense”) Simply put, Nietzsche thought that knowledge was overrated. Too much in the 17th and 18th centuries had philosophers thought wrongly that knowledge via reason (or as my opponent calls it “logical reason”) was an absolute guarantor. What is the relevance of this harangue of mine? – My opponent implicitly would like us to backtrack to previous centuries, where reason dominated and was final arbiter of all things we can rightly believe. Is human knowledge really founded on reason? As Bertrand Russell eloquently put it:“Man is a rational animal. So at least we have been told. Throughout a long life I have searched diligently for evidence in favor of this statement. So far, I have not had the good fortune to come across it.” (Unpopular Essays). Therefore, I believe my opponent’s attempt to posit “logical reason” as the cornerstone of knowledge by means of defining belief as such, is an abominably archaic move. B. My opponent formally defines observation as that “which we learn to understand cause and effect in our world.” My opponent’s definition of observation is seriously flawed. It posits observation as passive. When David Hume made causation psychological, he did away with the idea that causation is in the world. Rather causation is merely a cognitive ability of relating conjunctions within experience. (http://plato.stanford.edu...). In other words, observation can only be understood as psychological; causation is simply a cognitive construct; what is actually in experience is simply the relation (or conjunction) of objects “out there.” (See Humean “Billiard Ball” Argument http://www.sparknotes.com...) Therefore, I believe my opponent’s definition of “observation” is seriously flawed. I argue, observation is egocentric and subjective, dependent on an individual’s psychology. Observation is not solely sense-datum (as my opponent thinks), but the cognitive manipulation of sense datum by the imagination, reason, or other mental capacities etc. It should be worth noting that Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, infers that knowledge of a God (or gods) is possible, since all knowledge is based on probability and not actuality. C. I am surprised at my opponent’s view on Truth. How can my opponent argue that “the only absolute is that there are no absolutes” when by saying such thing he implicitly argues rational knowledge to be absolute as well? For only through reason can an individual come to the conclusion that “the only absolute etc.MY CASE A. My opponent agrees to definition of knowledge=“justified true belief.” There is a problem, however, with the notion that knowledge is “justified true belief”. This is explicitly seen in Gettier Problems:http://en.wikipedia.org.... What Edmund Gettier points out is that even when beliefs are justified based on logical reasoning, they do not guarantee knowledge. Strictly speaking, Gettier problems undermine my opponent’s argument. Because I lack characters to elaborate on this, please refer to link. B. I advocate the epistemological viewpoint of Coherentism; Justification is Knowledge.This Coherentist view displaces the traditional “Justified True Belief” that Gettier dismantled and which my opponent is a proponent thereof. My opponent misunderstands me and incorrectly claims that beliefs are justified by reason. Beliefs in-themselves do not have to be concocted by reason, but the beliefs do have to reasonably cohere with one another in a belief-system. Coherentists see knowledge as tangible and changing depending on justification of beliefs.