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Goodbye Jesus

Knowing Things That Aren't True


Llwellyn

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The Bible says that we "know" that curses are divine.  "They know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death."  Romans 1:32.  This passage comes from Romans 1 which basically says that we innately and inherently know that God exists and know his evil.  "The LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you."  Joshua 23:15.

 

It seems that this is true.  We do know that Yahweh exists.  When you see a mouse  start sprinting across a road or an open field, in order to seek cover on the other side, it is because he knows that the "Roc" exists.  The Roc is a mythological Arabic extremely large bird.  Mice (and humans too) know that the Roc exists, because we have anxiety and our ancestors were small and vulnerable in a world inhabited by pterodactyls, eagles, and other flying predators.  In an evolving world, we fear aerial predators seen and unseen, regardless of whether we have any experience with them.  An ancient mammal that believed in a threat only after he had seen evidence of the threat did not survive to be the ancestor of any living mouse.  Knowledge comes before evidence.

 

Do we know that the Roc exists?  Yes we do.  We know it by instinct and not by inference from any evidence.  Does the Roc actually exist?  No it doesn't.  But this does not mean that our innate knowledge of terrifying predators from above goes away.  I can well agree with Christians when they say that we know that Yahweh exists -- because we do.  But our knowledge of his existence cannot conjure him into existence when he does not exist.  Thoughts?

 

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''Does the Roc actually exist? No it doesn't. But this does not mean that our innate knowledge of terrifying predators from above goes away. I can well agree with Christians when they say that we know that Yahweh exists -- because we do. But our knowledge of his existence cannot conjure him into existence when he does not exist. Thoughts?''

 

Took this quote out of your above opening post...

 

I was following what you were saying until the bolded part. (bolded by me)

Can you clarify that point? Not sure what you mean...

Thank you ...

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Confusing.  

 

1)  Knowledge of reality equates with knowledge of fiction?  Why?

 

2)  Evolution does not have knowledge.  As you alluded to, those mice that tended to avoid the birds had more offspring.  The trait remained in the gene pool.  It has nothing to do with knowledge.

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Perhaps I should have started out this way...

 

Atheists ought to be willing to concede the Christian's claim that Atheists know Yahweh exists.  Atheists should be willing to agree that we know Yahweh exists even at the same time as we deny that Yahweh is actually real.  I grant this position is kind of paradoxical, so bear with me...

 

Within ourselves we have the sense of the existence of an aerial threat.  We have this instinctual fear because we inherit it from our evolutionary ancestors.  We know and fear a predator-from-above in the same way that infants know and fear snakes.  Infants would know and fear snakes even if snakes did not exist (perhaps if they had gone extinct).  Infants possess within themselves a knowledge and fear of a wide range of snake-like creatures, even hypothetical and fictional snakes.  Infants fear Medusa's snakes even though those snakes are mythological.  The lemurs of Madagascar fear the Malagasy Crowned Eagle which is now extinct;  the "knowledge" of that species of eagle lives in lemurs even though there is not an animal that corresponds with that lemur knowledge.

 

An awareness of something that is not real can be called "knowledge," if Christians insist on using that word...  I don't deny that I have an innate sense of the All-Seeing, Ungenerous Eye looking down on us.  As an atheist I would say that just because I know a thing, does not make that thing true.  I would also say that there is probably a very good explanation for why we know that Yahweh is real -- and that explanation is not that Yahweh is, in fact, real.

 

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Sorry, I don't innately know God exists. Why would a remnant of evolution prove that I do? I don't innately fear God like I do a looming shadow.

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Perhaps I should have started out this way...
 
Atheists ought to be willing to concede the Christian's claim that Atheists know Yahweh exists.  Atheists should be willing to agree that we know Yahweh exists even at the same time as we deny that Yahweh is actually real.  I grant this position is kind of paradoxical, so bear with me...
 
Within ourselves we have the sense of the existence of an aerial threat.  We have this instinctual fear because we inherit it from our evolutionary ancestors.  We know and fear a predator-from-above in the same way that infants know and fear snakes.  Infants would know and fear snakes even if snakes did not exist (perhaps if they had gone extinct).  Infants possess within themselves a knowledge and fear of a wide range of snake-like creatures, even hypothetical and fictional snakes.  Infants fear Medusa's snakes even though those snakes are mythological.  The lemurs of Madagascar fear the Malagasy Crowned Eagle which is now extinct;  the "knowledge" of that species of eagle lives in lemurs even though there is not an animal that corresponds with that lemur knowledge.
 
An awareness of something that is not real can be called "knowledge," if Christians insist on using that word...  I don't deny that I have an innate sense of the All-Seeing, Ungenerous Eye looking down on us.  As an atheist I would say that just because I know a thing, does not make that thing true.  I would also say that there is probably a very good explanation for why we know that Yahweh is real -- and that explanation is not that Yahweh is, in fact, real.
 
raptor_eye.jpg

 

You mean like the Eye of Sauron?

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Hi Llewellyn, I understand your point, and I think it's a good one.  Still, I would frame your main thesis differently.  Usually we think that the object of knowledge is truths or facts.  If I know that P, it follows by definition that P.  When you start off proposing that atheists know that Yahweh exists but deny that Yahweh is actually real, I think you open up needless problems, because either:

1 - the atheists in your scenario are in error, and Yahweh does in fact exist, or

2 - there can be objects that exist but are not actually real (this is the reverse of the philosophical position, Meinongianism, which holds that fictional objects, like the Roc, are real but do not exist), or

3 - you are using "know" in a special, different sense from its usual sense

or something else.

I think any of these consequences open up too many cans of worms to be worth it.

 

Perhaps just take out "know" and put in some other verb with weaker epistemic connotations?

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We have evolved with instincts that are conducive to preserving our lives, therefore making it more likely that we will reproduce. The will to live is strong… and these instincts are of a few kinds:

 

We fear what we do not know - because what we do not know can kill us (the Roc, for example, spiders are another… not all spiders are a threat but enough are that most people still fear them.) It's irrational in a purely cerebral way but in a survival way it makes perfect sense. Stuck between fight or flight a lot of the time, and having the ability to reason and think abstractly (there really is nothing threatening there) we sublimate these instincts and emotions and RATIONALIZE them.

 

We are social animals… we crave others. Strength in numbers.. we are more likely to survive in a group than alone. Our own kind is pretty deadly too - so we also crave a 'tribe'. Very few humans are hermits.

 

We are drawn to sweet and fat things to eat… because they have calories and nutrients we needed when we were hunter/gatherers.. now, not so much.

 

We are drawn to partner up…(for a short or long time) reproduction… again.

 

We 'know' god exists because of the first instinct - fear of the unknown, and... because we develop so slowly we also have a very deeply ingrained concept of authority (Parents) and we also have very complicated social rules that keep us cooperating, and not killing each other - they also make it more likely that we will be able to procure food and a mate and reproduce. These traits become enmeshed in the psyche…and are reinforced in our culture as religion, or devotion to country, tribe, ideology, etc...

 

It's ALL evolution.  biggrin.png

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Hey, thanks for indulging me, friends.  I tend to enjoy abstract thought experiments, and to the degree any of you have patience for that, I'm grateful.  As Ficino said, usually we think that knowledge is human belief that has a factual object.  But I think that we ought not to be so confident that any of our beliefs have a truly factual object, and thus when someone claims to have "knowledge," this claim is somewhat juvenile.  The difference between what is claimed to be a "belief" and what is claimed to be a "knowledge" is what, exactly?  It goes without saying that a person expects that even their beliefs correspondend with reality.  If they didn't, the person wouldn't hold the belief.  (Duh!)  What more, then, is a person really saying when they say that they "know" that their thoughts correspond with reality?  They are saying nothing more, they are just being more aggressive with their opinions.  And that's ok, I guess, if that's your thing.

 

I agree that opinions can be more or less supported by evidence, but this is a continuum rather than a discrete toggle between "belief" and "knowledge."  I don't think there is a single opinion that completely lacks all warrant.  Reports of the existence of the Roc may only be hearsay, but even hearsay is evidence upon which an inference can be draw.  Hearsay is a means by which beliefs are formed under certain circumstances and for some purposes.  Reformed epistemology (Prof Alvin Plantinga) says that belief in God is a "properly basic belief": it does not need to be inferred from other truths in order to be reasonable.  Even if I agree that belief in God is "properly basic," and that I possess this belief, this does not mean that I have to agree that this "knowledge" corresponds with any external referent.

 

People (including me) have knowledge (backed by a reason) about a lot of things that are simply crap.  This is shown because new scientific theories upend prior knowledge.  E.g. the theory of evolution, the heliocentric model of the planetary system, the round earth theory of the planet, the theory of relativity in physics.  As a child I knew that Santa existed, I knew that the past existed, I knew that giraffes existed, I knew that the world was flat, I knew that I was a sinner.  What's the next knowledge that I have that will be shown to be wrong?  My knowledge, including my knowledge of Yahweh as described in Romans 1, does not count for much.

 

A Christian tells me that I know Yahweh is true?  As an atheist, I will not disagree with him.  I also know that the Book of Mormon is true.  Every day I fight to disbelieve a million things that I know are true.  I guess that is what is meant when the Bible says that I "suppress the truth."  Romans 1:18.  I call it a cognitive immune system.

 

clayton-christensen-clayton-christensen-

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"Both untutored observation and current research in the scientific study of religion suggest that a tendency to believe in God or something like God, apart from any propositional evidence, is part of our native cognitive endowment."  Alvin Plantinga.  Sounds about right.  A mammal's mind has a vague sense of anxiety about the presence of larger predators from above.  John Calvin spoke of the sensus divinitatis, but you could also call it the sensus raptoris:
 

 

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