One Should Not Presume Atheism

I thank Mestari for his response; it was certainly an unexpected line of argument. Nevertheless, it’s important to realise that Mestari has essentially agreed to my round 1 arguments. Just to reiterate:He does not argue for any of the principles I attacked for determining a default position. Those are drops.He also doesn’t argue against the conclusion that’s it’s preferable to presume agnosticism over atheism. Keep this point in mind. The aforementioned are drops.Mestari’s argument has a few main points:Abduction is a prerequisites for acquiring any new knowledge at all[Implied] We should learn about all possible viewsKnowledge is more valuable than true (or false) beliefMestari also raises other points, yet those will come up later. I remind readers my part of the burden is to give good reason not to presume atheism, that doesn’t mean I can’t agree it is beneficial to presume atheism.AbductionBasically, inferring A as an explanation of B. To give an example:The lawn is wet. But if it rained last night it would be unsurprising that the lawn is wet. Therefore, by abductive reasoning, the possibility that it rained last night is reasonable.Mestari also asserts that abduction is the only way to acquire knowledge. Perhaps it a severe misunderstanding on my part, but induction is a way to acquire knowledge. Indeed, prior to 1865 logicians tended to divide arguments into 2 subclasses – necessary inferences (deductive) and probable inferences (inductive and abductive) [1]. Without an elaboration on exactly how we acquire knowledge it seems unreasonable to state that we only acquire knowledge through abduction. If understanding how knowledge was acquired were so simple surely there would be no need for study into how humans learn?Also, why shouldn’t probable inferences on the whole be considered a way to gain knowledge? If knowledge is justified true belief then surely inferring B from A (induction) is a way to gain knowledge. Think about it. Your justification for your belief in the case of induction is experience. Experience is what gives you the justification for your belief. To put it another way, we (tend to) rely on Newton’s Laws to calculate the speed at which something might fall for instance. How is this any different from induction? We’re relying on past successes of the theory as justification for our belief – knowledge.I’ve given reasonable grounds to show that induction can lead to knowledge, and at the very least have questioned the assumption that only abduction can lead to knowledge. If that’s the case then repeated abduction is not necessary to gain knowledge, which is Con’s reason for wanting to presume atheism.Should we learn all possible views?This is perhaps the crucial point of Mestari’s argument. If this does not hold there is no reason to presume atheism. What reason could we have for not wanting to learn all possible views? Answer: Our inability to do everything means that we must prioritise. This is essentially the economic problem, with our limited resource being time. Let’s put this simply. You want to do C,D,E,F . C will take 6 hours, D 4, E 5 and F will take 8 hours. You have 12 hours. Your preference order is F, E, D, C. What should you do? F and D. You can’t do F and E as you have insufficient times, nor can you do C. Does this mean you don’t want to do C or E? No. Does this mean that C and E aren’t beneficial? No.If one were to make a single presumption given no evidence on their belief in God they should presume atheism? No; agnosticism. Why? One should utilise their time as best they can.Probabilistic mattersIt’s clear that one of atheism, agnosticism and theism are the correct presumption. What would happen if one presumed multiple things at the same time? That’s the sort of thing that puts you in the insanity wing – simultaneously believing mutually exclusive things to be true. I humbly suggest that one will better prioritise their time if they don’t simultaneously believe mutually exclusive things to be true.Diminishing returnsA further reason to realise presuming atheism is a bad idea. If your first presumption is agnosticism (which has been agreed to be the best course of action) then any further presumptions on the matter of God’s existence will result in diminishing returns as the potential knowledge one can acquire on a subject diminishes as knowledge on X subject is acquired. To put things in (very) simplistic terms, imagine there are 100 things that factor into the existence (or non-existence) of subject Y. You learn 55 things after your first presumption. Obviously your second presumption won’t yield the same level of return. If a more beneficial course of action exists then one should take that course of action.Ignorance is blissCon states “I believe that it goes without question that knowledge is more valuable than a false belief when analyzed in epistemic terms”. It certainly is more value in epistemic terms, yet what is to state that epistemic terms, or rather epistemic value, is what we should judge something by? Is there a justification?Previous arguments have discussed the notion that the value we place on the resource of time can outweigh epistemic value. The next notion is whether there actually is a positive value at all to gaining certain forms of knowledge.A classical argument, if not perhaps a perfect one, is that of Pascal’s wager. Imagine that you learn an argument against God’s existence. This has epistemic value. This also lessens the likelihood of God’s existence. However, the gains you receive from this knowledge and the likelihood it will convert you to atheism are negligible in contrast to the potential losses you could receive by eternal damnation (the nature of Hell is a separate debate in and of itself). In effect, the potential losses outweigh the potential gains, and the difference also outweighs the gains from epistemic value.Obviously, a false belief that provides happiness can be better than knowledge which causes negative effects (ie. Psychological trauma). Con would have us believe that the truth is in and of itself an ultimate good. It is not. If not learning of it is beneficial, be it by having false beliefs or not learning about a subject, we should not learn it. 1 final thing, does people’s liberty factor into what they want to learn? “The less people know about important complex issues... the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed” [2] Liberty should be another consideration as an alternative to epistemic value.ConclusionI’ve attacked Con’s case on 3 grounds. Firstly, abduction isn’t a prerequisite for knowledge, which undermines his entire chain of argument. Secondly, despite any wishes we might have in learning everything we can for it’s epistemic value, time prevents us from doing so. Matters like diminishing returns tend to suggest a diversification knowledge will yield a greater result as well.Finally, the very question of whether we do want to know everything is asked. Do we want to know everything? There are other considerations besides epistemic value. If these considerations (in the context of God's existence) outweigh epistemic value then we shouldn’t presume atheism. Also, my arguments from R1 stand unrefuted, so where applicable they apply.I look forward to Con’s reply.[1] - http://plato.stanford.edu... [2] - http://psychcentral.com...