"correctly evaluated" according to what?
The principles of reason in the evaluation of evidence. This is the only method for determining what is true about the world.
You seem to always be assuming that there is a discernible 'right' answer and any other answer must them be wrong, or irrelevant.
You seem to never understand what you read. Why do you keep making this error after being corrected a dozen times? What should I think of the conclusions of somebody correcting me that cannot master what I tell him? I have never assumed or stated that there is always a right answer. I'm an agnostic atheist, remember? There is no answer to the question of the existence of gods.
Of course, you never respond to these comments. You never try to rebut them. You don't acknowledge that you read them. There is no evidence you have. You just ignore it and come back repeating the error. It's a staple in the apologists' toolkit:
Point refuted a thousand times - RationalWiki
All the possible answers are equally likely to be right as they are to be wrong.
Nope. Guesses are much more likely to be wrong than right when there are many more ways to be wrong than right, as with picking lottery numbers.
we are not going to know 'the truth of it all'. Why do you keep ignoring this?
Why do you keep ignoring that I have never ignored that, and stated the opposite explicitly many times as I have again in this reply, undoubtedly to be missed again, ignored again, not answered again, and the mistake it intended to correct repeated again.
Do you wish to be taken seriously? Would you like to change the minds of even critical thinkers Acknowledge that you can understand what you read by paraphrasing properly. Rebut that which you disagree with with a specific rebuttal that, if correct, invalidates what you disagree rather than simply disagree or ignore. Make arguments instead of bare claims. Provide supporting evidence for you claims if you want them to be considered.
This is never going to happen between us, is it? You refuse to do your part. And all that's left for me in such a discussion is to critique your debating etiquette and habits. Your unsupported opinions are of no value to me. The empiricist doesn't care what you believe, but what you know and can demonstrate to be correct. None of your opinions to me have a shred of support, and none of my arguments in rebuttal of those claims have been rebutted by you. You don't do that. You just disagree without argument and repeat yourself.
Do you think you're going to get the 'big answer'? Do you think evidence and reason are going to give it to you?
Still?
What I've said is that reason applied to evidence is how questions that can be answered are correctly answered, that many questions are unanswered and likely unanswerable, and that as a secular humanist, I have accepted that and am not troubled or distracted by them at all. Read that about fourteen times and try to understand what it says so that you can one day not make this same mistake regarding what I have told you repeatedly.
It's evidence of the positive effect that faith has on those who engage in it.
You ignore the evidence of the detriment of faith.
Actually, it's a pretty universal human need. Like love, and justice, and individual autonomy, we need to feel a sense of meaning, and value, and purpose to our lives, and the lives of those we exist with. I'm both puzzled and a little frightened that you seem to think these human needs are weaknesses, and warrant your derision.
What I consider undesirable is meeting those needs with comforting fictions. I understand that many cannot do better. What you don't understand is that many can. You see that approach as deficient, too small a vision, what you disparagingly call scientism and a materialist paradigm.
Look, I don't diminish you for needing a god belief. I never have. In fact, I've said several times that I wouldn't deprive you of that if I could unless I could also replace it with something better, which would require your understanding and cooperation to do, something that just never happens.
Yet you and many like you are continually implying that your predicament is actually superior, and that those who have avoided it are too small in their thinking. I've given you the apt metaphor (which you also and predictably have failed to comment on every time) of the person with poor vision who one day gets glasses, can see, and excitedly tells everybody they need a pair. Then someone like me says that his vision is find without correction, and in fact, glasses actually degrade his vision. Then the guy with glasses start demeaning the guy with good vison for his disinterest in glasses, who responds, "Isn't it better to not need glasses to see than to need them to read? I'm happy for you, but I don't have that need." And this is followed by more objections worded as being too limited in vision. Then I ask, "Tell me what you see that I don't" and guess what? Bupkis. Diddly squat. He sees less than I do.
So who's the one with limited vision after all? Can you see the arguments in front of you? Do you know what a rebuttal is? Is there any of it you can refute, or will it all me either no comment or a wave of the hand followed by either nothing or words that don't make your case or weaken mine? Can you do better than that? If not, why not? If so, same question: why not?
