I'll explain myself again...
1. People will believe whatever makes sense to them as an idividual.
That's true.
2. People don't need empirical evidence to believe something.
Also true.
3. However, if two people have contrary beliefs, each with equal amounts of empirical evidence, then neither belief is more justified than the other.
It depends on what you mean by empirical evidence. If you change it to "equal amounts of verifiable, falisifiable, able-to-be-experienced-by-anyone evidence", then yes, that's true. However, that's not the case with the God debate, or the dream example in your OP.
4. The people with opposing views may think each other are idiots depending on how greatly such views oppose each other.
That's true.
5. However, that does not negate the fact each individual has equal empirical evidence for each view.
Again, it depends on what you mean by "empirical". If you mean "provable or verifiable by experience or experiment." as defined by dictionary.com, then, when discussing some of your examples and the God debate, both parties don't have that empirical evidence.
6. To eliminate bias from the situation when determining which viewpoint is most right, you would have to pick the viewpoint supported by scientific evidence.
Exactly. That's all we're trying to tell you. And in that case, in your OP, you would find that the view that dreams are visions of the future is "less right". In the God debate, you'll find that believing in an omnimax, interventionalist god is "less right".
7. If you do not use this method, then you are letting your own subjective morality come into play, which proves nothing except that you disagree with the other person.
That's true. That's why we are suggesting using exactly that method.
9. So again. To eliminate all forms of bias, when deciding which view is most justified (not which view makes sense to you), you have to pick the viewpoint which is supported by the available data.
So, again, exactly. That's what we're telling you. You have to go with the one that you can check and verify. One that you can test and one that fits all of the available data. That means not believing someone when they say they can see the future, unless they give you predictions that come true, for instance.
10. If there is no evidence for or against the views of each of the people in disagreement - then according to the evidence - they are both equally justified.
Ah, and herein lies the problem. For instance, you take that person who says they can predict the future. The evidence against them is that no one has ever been able to do this verifiably (that would go under the "experience" part of the "empirical" evidence). So, unless that person shows they are different from every other person that anyone has ever experienced, there is evidence against what they're saying.
11. Using this reasoning, based on the emprical evidence alone, I am still allowed to disagree that murder with the excuse that "Satan made me do it" is okay. But just because that is my view, that doesn't mean the empirical evidence supports it. Can I make myself any more clear?
Oh, you've made yourself perfectly clear. You're just making a huge leap that's wrong. I understand you want to play these games so that you can disagree with the "Satan made me do it" thing and still uphold your original point, but I also understand that you're simply rationalizing.
12. Conventional law is (arguably) a reflection of mainstream morality. Since such frameworks are against murder, it is justified that the man be commited to an asylum. Not because his view was more or less justified (based on the evidence - or lack thereof), but because a significant proportion of society would disagree that he was right in doing that (also based on zero empircal evidence).
There are two things going on here. What we are locked up for is a reflection of mainstream morality, which is usually summed up in "anything that can hurt or unjustly negatively affect someone else". How we determine that is through the court system, which is based on support with evidence. "Innocent until proven guilty". One side says "This man is guilty of murder". The other side says "Prove it". If there is insufficient proof - for instance, only a not-so-reliable witness - then the accused is assumed innocent according to the law. Just like, if someone claims that God exists or they can dream the future, but provide insufficient evidence, we assume they're wrong.
13. If you still don't understand what I'm saying, then it's no longer my problem.
See, here's another problem. You assume because I disagree that I don't understand what you're saying. I know exactly what you're saying. The problem is you're wrong.
The worst part is that you showed with your examples in the OP that you don't understand what atheists are saying, as in the case of the black swan. You don't seem to get why that is vastly different from the God debate, and yet here you are accusing others of not understanding you when the real problem is that you don't understand them.
Atheists are an incredibly diverse group of people all with differing beliefs. The one thing which unites atheism, though, is the disbelief in all forms of deity. Am I misguided here?
Yes, you are. Atheists don't disbelieve in all forms of deity. It's a - theism, meaning not theism. All atheists don't believe in is a theistic sort of god. There are plenty of others that can make sense and jive with what we know about the universe.
But people still didn't believe that black swans could exist, even when given a friend's word. That example wasn't completely made up, you know?
And? Why is that supposed to reflect on me? What does that have to do with me? You use it in the OP as an analogy, as if it relates closely to my assertion that people who believe in a certain type of god are wrong. I don't care whether some people didn't believe black swans existed. Some people didn't believe the world was round or that Native Americans were humans. I'm not one of them, and none of those things reflect on me in the slightest.
Okay. If no one had EVER made that claim to you, and instead, without any further prompting, you came to that conclusion... would you be deluded? Would you require evidence? And you still haven't explained how disbelief is based on more evidence than belief.
Yes, I would be deluded.
I would require more evidence, but then
I wouldn't come to that conclusion in the first place. I have explained how disbelief is based on more evidence than belief, you've just chosen to ignore it. That type of God doesn't make sense with everything we know about the world.
You're only applying the inductive reasoning side of things to the person who disbelieves. What if, say, the person you're with came from Sweden and it was summer, so he would expect the sun to rise based on his 20+ years of living. So who is right based on deductive reasoning, disregarding inductive reasoning?
That's great. You can change the analogy to say anything you want. The point is that if you and a friend who lives right near you are in that basement, it's more justified to disblieve him when he says it's light outside, even though you can't actually see it.
Is this thinly veiled arrogance I see again?
Nope. It's called calling it like it is. You dug yourself in and won't give up now.
And again, why focus on just the Christian God? There are more god-concepts than that.
ARGGHHH! Because that's the only one I'm really concerned with, for one. For another, it's the one that's most easily found fault with. Yes, there are other god concepts. As I explained, atheists don't reject all god concepts. Again, you misunderstand, and yet feel qualified to make accusations. I'm focusing on the Christian God concept because it's the one that makes the least sense, and the one that atheists argue against. If you want to talk about a different concept, then your analogies in the OP really, really don't work because atheists don't make those same assertions about all god concepts, contrary to your belief.
