But strangely the record of human progress in understanding our environment does lead us to see that disposition as unreliable. It may have helped us get by in our primitive surroundings but it is absolutely useless in helping us to understand the real world. (We evolved to survive – not understand the real world). And it has been that understanding which has provided us with all the advantages our society has today.

You cannot see the difference between a primitive experience and a scientific experience. A process enabling us to bypass, to a large extent, our mental foibles, ghosts, gods, spirits, etc. By continuous application of the empirical experience. By testing and validating against reality.

So you end up in the ridiculous position of saying: “you talk about, learning lessons from experience, however on your own position this is impossible. To learn from experience one has to consider our experiences reliable sources we can learn from. If they are not we can’t learn from experience.”

Unfortunately because you wish to stick with a primitive experience, avoid continuing that experience in to testing and validation (science) you get stuck with an incorrect view of reality. (holes in the firmament, gods and taniwha).

By the way – some people do have the experience that their wife does not exist – or that she is an impostor. it would be sad to accept that at face value and leave them suffering from such a delusion, wouldn’t it?

Actually this is nonsense. Many philosophers (amateur and professional) hold and defend such views, and will never be placed in a “mental hospital.” People are usually places in mental hospitals because they present a danger to others, but more often a danger to themselves. In actual fact I believe (perhaps Madeleine can confirm this) that in New Zealand people are specifically protected from being deemed mentally ill due to their religious/political/philosophical beliefs.

Now I know you used this term as a throw away comment – but it is a thoughtless one – and possibly insulting to some people suffering from mental illness and sometimes in need of medical help. Using “mentally ill” as a throw away substitute for “has stupid ideas” is both ignorant and insulting…. a bit like calling things “gay” if you don’t like them etc. etc.

Thats right dismiss arguments and empirical research with name calling.

But no-one really believes this, right? Isn’t it tantamount to believing in ‘invisible friends’, or even Ghengis Khan.

I can read some person’s ‘history of Ghengis Khan’ and it matters not one whit to me if there actually was a person by that name.

Seems to me you need more evidence than you have to believe what you say you believe. Surely silly word-games involving imagining ‘the greatest being’ and such are nonsense?

First, your points do not address my position, my position was not that anything we have a natural disposition to believe is in fact justified. But rather that we are justified in assuming our natural dispositions are reliable in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

Second, your claim about this being a “local” manifestation can apply to other practises like sensory perception. I have a disposition to believe I am seeing a star when I look up in the sky, ancient babylonains had a disposition to see holes in the firmament. No one would consider this proof that our sensory perception is just a delusive illusion. So neither should the fact that some people have a disposition to see wood spirts another to see that the wood was created by a holy spirt they called God, mean that the disposition to see such beings is unreliable.

Third, you talk about, learning lessons from experience, however on your own position this is impossible. To learn from experience one has to consider our experiences reliable sources we can learn from. If they are not we can’t learn from experience. Here you are being arbitrary and selective, your rejecting arguments from experience as naïve and then turn around and appeal to experience to defend your own claim.

Finally you really have not addressed by point, according to Barett the disposition by which we form beliefs about God is the same disposition via we form beliefs about other minds, if your going to dismiss belief in God as superstitious because this disposition has allegedly lead some to believe in Taniwha, then one can claim belief in other minds is superstitious for the same reason.

Claiming we can’t immediately tell other people exist, or that we need to scientifically prove say my wife exists before I believe in her certifies one for a mental hospital. Yet this is the implication of your method.

But humanity has come a long way and such superstition is no longer a justification in the real world. Although some people fo their best to defend it by avoiding lessons from our experience. Getting stuck with deductive logic is one manifestation of that.

2. Your last comment is a straw man, I never said the mere fact a large number of people believe something entails it exists. What I said was that if we have a natural disposition to believe X, then in the absence of evidence to the contrary we are rational in believing X. If you don’t start off trusting your natural belief dispositions you will not be able to know anything at all.

Take for example your Santa Claus example, people don’t have a natural disposition to believe in Santa Claus it’s a belief based on testimony, second adults have strong evidence to the contrary, we know that we put the presents under the tree we know the North Pole does not contain Santa’s hose, we know that this is a story our parents told us and so on.
On the other hand if we naturally found believe in Santa obvious, like we do the belief that other people exist, and we had no reasons for doubting this belief. Things would be different but they are not.

I stand by this:

“Such beliefs and superstitions, even if widespread, are not evidence for the objective existence of wood spirits, taniwha, ghosts, ancestor spirits, ghosts, gods or fairies.”

As you say: “the fact people naturally believe in other minds provides no objective evidence for other minds.”

Perfectly true – we have plenty of objective evidence for this – we don’t rely on simple superstition.

Do really think that because a large number of people in this country believe in taniwha that this provides objective evidence for their existence? Or Santa Claus? Come off it.

Now just substitute your god for their taniwha.

If this disposition is to be assumed unreliable, then we can’t rationally believe other people exist without first proving they do and the arguments for other people are even less compelling than the arguments for Gods existence.

If on the other hand we are justified in accepting as reliable our natural disposition to believe in other people, you can’t then claim the same disposition is unreliable when it comes to belief in God.

Then the fact people naturally believe in other minds provides no objective evidence for other minds.

The fact people naturally reject sollipism is not evidence against sollipism.

The fact people naturally believe certain rules of logic are valid is not evidence they are valid

The fact people naturally find it self evident that killing children for fun is wrong does not provide grounds for thinking its wrong and so on.

and so forth.

If you reject that our natural belief forming dispositions are rational and can’t be prima facie trusted, then you actually fall into a skepticism about everything. Every thing you believe, every method you utilse involves you using the belief forming mechanisms nature has given you, if you can’t trust them, then you start with nothing reliable.

At the end of the day you are left repeating the false epistemological mantras I have already addressed.