Dan's 1st response to Marty

I'll put Marty's questions in italics:

What is your standard for truth?

You have stated that your standard for truth is reality.

So then I ask:

1.      When you say your standard of truth is reality, how are you not begging the question that your reasoning of what reality actually is, is valid?

The definition of truth, as I use the term, is that which corresponds with reality. The question then is; how do I know that a statement is true? This is the question tackled by the epistemological methodist, in which the criteria for how we know are established in order to determine what we know. Knowledge, being a justified belief, then requires us to determine what justification entails in order to elevate our beliefs to knowledge. Because our only avenue to reality is via our senses, we are then obliged to rely on our senses for justification.

Must we just arbitrarily assume your interpretation is accurate?

No, of course not. You can use the same procedure, and by inference I can conclude we are accessing the same reality.

2.      On what do you base your assumption that you can match your claims for what is true to reality?

The foundation, or the end to the infinite regress if you would, are those things that I believe because of the impossibility of the contrary. I call them axioms. For example, that my senses are at least provisionally valid; I exist; the law of non-contradiction is valid, etc. I don’t consider these knowledge claims however, because the idea of having sensory justification for my existence, for example, would be begging the question. But I believe the axioms because believing the contrary is incoherent; therefore they are anything but arbitrary.

3.      As you have no known mechanism from a strictly atheist/naturalist worldview for even the ORIGIN of reason much less the implementation of it, to say it exists, therefore it exists, therefore it works, is begging the question.

The form of your question seems to assume that reason is some type of product manufactured and shipped out to the universe. Reason (logic) is a description of an aspect of reality. To ask for the origin of reason is like asking for the origin of “red”. “Red” is just a description of some aspect of reality.

From your worldview you can be no more certain of your reason than the patient at Bellevue strapped to his bed.

I’ve driven past Bellevue, but I can’t say I’ve ever been inside. I can be confident in my perception of reality, because as I mentioned above, we can infer that others perceive the same reality. After all, one of the reasons someone would be in Bellevue is because their perception of reality differs in some dramatic way from those around them.

Or can you? CAN you KNOW things for certain? If so, what do you know and how EXACTLY do you KNOW it?

The how part I think I’ve covered, but just to restate… I start with the necessary truths, the beliefs that I accept because the contrary is incoherent. From there I use evidence from my senses and my understanding of reason to establish what I know. As far as certainty, that increases as the quality and quantity of the evidence increases. Now I understand that you probably mean an absolute logical certainty, which many Presuppositionalists claim via an omniscient entity. I’ll gladly explain why omniscience is not a coherent concept, and even if it was, why it wouldn’t help achieve the absolute certainty that is claimed. But I’ll save that for another reply.