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Goodbye Jesus

Does this explain the impasse between Christians and no-Christians?


WalterP

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10 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

oh look at me, this hole seems made just for me. Why I fit it perfectly

This hole is round; but God made me a square peg.  It's all part of his plan, though.  😆

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9 hours ago, WalterP said:

A hypothesis or theory is only discarded in two circumstances. 

Point of clarification: a scientific theory is not the same as a hypothesis.  A scientific theory is a framework which has been supported by multiple hypotheses which all provide evidence toward the acceptance of said theory and its validity.  Examples include the Theory of Gravity, the Theory of Evolution, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. 

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7 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

We didn't believe God was under any obligation to do anything that mere humans might think of.

Perhaps this is why edgarcito finds no fault with god for the plight of our ten-year-old sex slave.

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9 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Hi! *waves*

 

 

Well there are two ways to answer this. If I reassert my past Christian self I would say he didn't up to the point I stopped believing, but we (the church) were always striving to understand God better and praying that he would give a complete revelation of himself.

 

Really, LogicalFallacy?  That doesn't seem to accord with scripture very well.  On Mt. Sinai, even though Moses asked god to show him his glory, God prevented Moses from seeing his face.  Because, after the Fall, nobody could look upon God's face and live.  Even when Moses and Joshua spoke with God, face-to-face, at the tent of meeting, God still concealed His full glory with smoke.  And lets not forget that the book of Revelation tells us that the faithful will only get to see God's face after the curse of the Fall is lifted, in the holy city of the New Jerusalem.  Until that happens, if God were to reveal himself completely to anyone he would instantly destroy them.  So, he keeps His complete self hidden from the view of mortals, behind a veil of unapproachable light.  See Timothy 1 Timothy 6 : 16.

 

Surely you meant that you prayed for God to reveal enough of Himself to you for you to know and understand Him better?  Enough and Better aren't complete, are they?

 

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Now I look at the question and say it makes no sense. I don't believe God exists. I'm sure we can agree that a non existent being cannot give an understanding of itself?

 

Not really sure about the point behind this question Walter. If I asked you did Zeus ever give you a complete understanding of himself how would you answer?

 

I don't believe he exists either, LogicalFallacy.  But what I believe now doesn't stop me from re-entering the mindset I used to have, in order to gain a better dialogue with the Christians in this forum.  That's the whole point of using the technique known as being a Devil's Advocate.  You step into the other's shoes and think as they do, to test the validity of their thinking.  Have you never done this?  

 

Sorry, but I think that the Zeus question isn't relevant.  Yes, I know that you're comparing what you consider to be two non-existent beings.  However, neither of us are Ex-Zeusians are we?   So, you and I can only speak about what we know and what we used to know.  

 

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Well, not "should". We didn't believe God was under any obligation to do anything that mere humans might think of.

 

Now as an Ex Christian I tend to think that if God is indeed beyond our understanding as some Christians assert then what's the point. Essentially God to Humans is a bigger gap than Humans to Ants - and never the twain meet there do they?

 

Now, swinging around to a theological aspect I would say because God wants us to know him, and have a relationship as sons and daughters then yes he should give a compete understanding. The God of the bible is not some far off incomprehensible thing that modern Christianity now asserts. Apparently we are supposed to be able to comprehend God. Attempts at saying "well humans simply cannot understand God, he is beyond our comprehension" is just another evasion tactic to get around the problem of the divine hiddenness of God.

 

 

I guess I kind of answered that with my theological spiel above? Yes I did - provided God revealed himself.

 

 

But, as I've outlined above, from a Biblical perspective, you could not have survived if God completely revealed Himself to you.  Every time in scripture, when God reveals even a minute fraction of His power, humans are overcome and are terrified.  Look at John 18 : 1 - 8, especially verse 6.  Jesus spoke the name of God, 'I AM'.  This small display of power caused Judas Iscariot, a detachment of soldiers, the officials of the chief priest and the Pharisees to draw back and fall to the ground.   And that's just two little words.

 

If you want further evidence from scripture, trying looking at the reactions of the apostles Peter, John and James during Jesus' Transfiguration.  They were witnessing a very limited display of god's infinite power, not a complete one.  Yet, they were overcome with fear.  A complete revelation would have destroyed them utterly! 

 

Surely, if God wants us to know Him, then He knows full well that He cannot reveal His full and complete self to us?  If God is all-knowing then He would know that He can only reveal Himself partially to us.  Therefore, the statement that humans simply cannot understand God completely isn't necessarily an evasion tactic.  It's an absolute necessity for God to keep Himself mostly hidden from our eyes and our understanding.

 

The idea I'm putting forward LogicalFallacy, is one of sufficiency.  The Bible doesn't reveal ALL, it reveal sufficient for the needs of the believers.  God doesn't reveal ALL of Himself, but only what is sufficient for the believers.  Can you see how scripture doesn't support your notion of complete revelation, but does support the my idea of sufficiency?

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

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1 hour ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Point of clarification: a scientific theory is not the same as a hypothesis.  A scientific theory is a framework which has been supported by multiple hypotheses which all provide evidence toward the acceptance of said theory and its validity.  Examples include the Theory of Gravity, the Theory of Evolution, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. 

 

Thank you for this correction, RNP.

 

However, my point still stands.  Evidence is used to falsify and when no evidence is possible, falsification is impossible.

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1 hour ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

I don't necessarily believe that all christians are totally devoid of rational thought, even toward their own beliefs.  There are (perhaps precious few) beliefs or thought processes that are well-thought, even logical, in spite of the original premise being flawed.

 

Not totally devoid no. Most of them won't cross a road with their eyes closed. And many of them clearly adopt moral positions not in line with the bible because they consider their position more moral and enlightened which does show rational thinking. But these are not the fundamentalist type either.

 

I think you point out another problem, which might be a more general affects everybody problem, is that few people seek to understand why they believe what they believe. 

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1 hour ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

I suppose if one considers oneself to be not in full possession of the facts, then belief would serve as an alternative to investigation.  Problematically, as Florduh has pointed out, christians believe themselves to be in full possession of The Truth; until called upon to support, or justify, it.  Then, suddenly, they are seeing as through glass darkly.

 

RNP,

 

As I have just shown to LogicalFallacy, it's not Biblical to claim that God had completely revealed Himself.   Scripture demonstrates that God has never done this since the Fall and won't do it again until after Judgement day.

 

The fact that Christians claim to possess The Truth is just unthinking enthusiasm on their part.  Nobody knows the FULL truth.  As Paul said, we see through a glass darkly.

 

Thanks

 

Walter.

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10 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

I'll take that cue as time to step in.

 

 

I'm not sure what's on your mind here, Walter? I for one have always been upfront with everyone about the limitations of truth claims in both science and religion. Carroll (if he actually believes as you've framed it) has seriously screwed up and wrecked his own credibility. Of course we can't "believe" in inflationary theory and the related multiverse scenarios without evidence. If we did something like that we'd be no better than christians doing similar. That should be obvious. Science is not a parallel replacement belief for religion and should never be treated as such. What's wrong with what christians are doing is just as wrong if waged in a secular setting, IMO. 

 

Josh, science and religion are absolute equals when either is asked to do something that it cannot.  That is my point.  I've just shown that scripture doesn't support the idea that God ever revealed Himself fully and completely and laid bare all mysteries.  The prevailing belief among Ex-Christians that Christians must know everything God knows is just wrong.

 

 

10 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

 

That was my point, though. While I'm not aware of any christians claiming to know all of the specifics of gods plan, I do expect that they can follow simply logic and reason because while brainwashed, they are still human beings capable of what human beings are capable of doing (proven by all of us who were just as brainwashed and then thought about it and moved on). Especially when the said christian has already began to realize that god as an absolute being must be very pantheistic in scope and depth as Edgarcito led on.

 

That has implications that land this side of the cosmic mystery, in fact. We were not discussing anything too mysterious to know or understand, we were merely follow through the logical conclusions that stem from making a specific claim. Where one person has thought it out already, and the other person has merely just waded in and is unprepared to deal with the necessarily implications of a given claim. Mysterious to the person who hasn't travel down that path very far, not so mysterious to the person who has. The mystery is one side in that scenario, not absolute, and not beyond knowledge and experience. 

 

This isn't really some, 'god works in mysterious ways' situation. Either god is as claimed, or god is not.

 

Again, my very point.  The Bible never claims that God has revealed Himself fully and completely.   Yes, certain Christians do say that He has, but their position is unsound.

 

10 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

We were dealing in black and white terms. For the benefit of Edgarcito and anyone reading along who might benefit from thinking the claims out further. The only problem is that god is being presented as a logical contradiction by the christians. This starts in the first chapter of Genesis. It doesn't get any better by Revelation. At the end of the day, none of this is very mysterious. It's just falsifiable claims presented as "truth." These are not theories comparable to science, either. They're myths about the world and humanity. There's no equal footing with science. I've made this very clear in my own debates with apologists. They are making specific claims like the world was created as the bible says. Those claims can be falsified in their own ways. 

 

Sorry Josh, but if I were to snap my fingers and say, 'Aha! Genesis doesn't describe how Hydrogen and Helium were formed in the early universe. Therefore the Bible is wrong!' then I'd be trying to force scripture to say something it was never designed to do.  I'd be wrong and my conclusion would be wrong.  

 

The flip side of this is that YEC's are making the same error, but from the opposite direction.  They are trying to force the Bible to say things it was never meant to say.  

 

Ok, I agree that certain claim presented as 'truth' can be demonstrated to be false, but we must be careful not to blindly hammer religion with science.  We must open our eyes, choose out tools carefully and wield them with even greater care.

 

In my exposition of the errors William lane Craig has made, you'll notice that I've never used science to attack his religion.  I've always confined myself to pointing out his scientific errors and lack of understanding of science.

 

Do you see that?

 

Thanks.

 

Walter.

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Can I make the argument that Christians do not hold to beliefs per se, they actually hold to emotional wants and desires, which then motivate them to "have faith" or belief in the tenets of Christianity. Their faith or truths are something which they feel are true. Thus when you try to get them to talk about specifics, the answer always comes down to "I have faith" because the primary motivator is emotional. Something always motivates them emotionally- fear of death, fear of hell, influencing or having power over others, community or fear of losing that, hope of eternal life - they are emotionally invested in these. Their primary motivator is not logic or rational thought, and in fact in a good many cases in fundamentalist Christianity, logic and reason are looked at as dangerous areas that can lead down the path to non belief. 

 

I think one can only reason successfully with the Christian who is a fence sitter but perhaps doesn't know it yet. In other words those who are willing to look past their emotional investment in it. 

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59 minutes ago, WalterP said:

Josh, science and religion are absolute equals when either is asked to do something that it cannot.  That is my point.  I've just shown that scripture doesn't support the idea that God ever revealed Himself fully and completely and laid bare all mysteries.  The prevailing belief among Ex-Christians that Christians must know everything God knows is just wrong.

 

Prevailing belief? Do you have evidence to support the assertion that ex christians have a prevailing belief that christians must know everything god knows? I've never heard of such a thing. And the questions that ex christians are asking of christians doesn't entail that they know everything that a god knows. They are much simpler questions than that. Let's first get the accusation established before going any further with it. 

 

You seem a little confused coming here new and trying to make sense of what you're seeing going on in the forums. That's ok. We should be able to clarify the confusion pretty easily. 

 

As to your point, yes, science and religion shouldn't be used to do something they can not. The point is a good point. I'm not sure why anyone would try and argue with it. If scientists treat science like a religion where they are believing in that which is unproven, they've screwed up. Science shouldn't be treated that way. 

 

59 minutes ago, WalterP said:

Again, my very point.  The Bible never claims that God has revealed Himself fully and completely.   Yes, certain Christians do say that He has, but their position is unsound.

 

The problem here is that no one said that god has revealed himself fully and completely. Some christians might say that, but we don't think that way.

 

And what I'm asking of christians DOESN'T require that a god has revealed himself fully as far as what his plan consists of. It's a non issue against my line of questioning. All we need to know is that the bible reveals god as such and such, it gives attributes. If we take what is revealed about god and then reason through what is revealed, contradictions in logic and necessarily conclusions follow. That's what we're addressing. We're not asking to know what remains mysterious. We're asking why they believe in a long list of self contradiction? 

 

Is it mysterious that the bible says god is all good, or all knowing, or all powerful, or all present? Those claims each come with implications. Trying to avoid the necessary implications constitutes a dodge, a evasion, turning a blind eye to what is black and white simple and obvious. There's nothing mysterious about that. 

 

59 minutes ago, WalterP said:

Ok, I agree that certain claim presented as 'truth' can be demonstrated to be false, but we must be careful not to blindly hammer religion with science.  We must open our eyes, choose out tools carefully and wield them with even greater care.

 

 

I welcome this sort of internal criticism of the ex christian community. I do think that we need to be sharp and careful in consideration. Here, I'll drop a link to my last informal debate with a youtube apologist: 

 

 

 

I spoke of science, but didn't make it the end all of the debate. The main focus is on the self contradiction of the bible itself. And philosophical issues surrounding biblical claims and biblical contradictions. 

 

59 minutes ago, WalterP said:

In my exposition of the errors William lane Craig has made, you'll notice that I've never used science to attack his religion.  I've always confined myself to pointing out his scientific errors and lack of understanding of science.

 

Do you see that?

 

Thanks.

 

Walter.

 

If you peer review the informal debate you'll find that while I mentioned cosmology, I was more focused on the agnostic aspect that underlies it all. Craig and others don't have any evidence that they know ultimate reality, and neither do sciences have the evidence that reveals ultimate reality. Everyone is on equal footing in terms of agnostic. We just don't know. But, and here's where the christians fall into a hole, they claim that they do know ultimate reality by claiming that their god IS ultimate reality. And they commit intellectual dishonesty by asserting that they know that which is unknown. 

 

If anyone else does this, they will fail in the same way. No one can claim to know that the multiverse exists if they don't actually know that. 

 

These philosophical issues form a basis and foundation that runs deeper than the scientific issues. And that's one of my points. Knowledge and not knowledge needs to be used as a guide when navigating scientific issues, theories and cosmology. So when I christian tries to pin me down about science, notice how easily I roll the accusation off? They can not pin me down about science because I do not profess to believing in science in the way that someone believes in religion. LuthAMF kept trying to pin me down like that. As if I'm some stereo typical atheist who thinks exactly according to his asserted stereo type of how atheist's think and what atheist's think. But he was wrong, again and again. 

 

Anywho, you're welcome to peer review me any time. I don't take offense. I welcome the feed back. 

 

Thanks. 

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Late to the thread, but I wanted to say that I think there is something to the OP. Much depends on how we define "true". This is a non-trivial problem, which may need further exploration if this conversation is to make headway.

 

I think it is correct to say that religions often attempt to establish different criteria for truth than the rest of us usually use. But I also think it's true that an awful lot of people don't really have a good theory of truth at all. We use the term loosely and naively, and as long as we don't run into problems,  we just carry on. I actually think that religions try to be less naive about their theories of truth than many secular people do. This is because they have a definite doctrine and an organizational structure. By contrast,  there are no official secular teachings on this matter. There are different theories,  but no one is saying "to be secular,  you must believe this". Philosophers think about these kinds of things,  but scientists, in my experience,  often just take for granted that truth is well-defined and well-understood, even when it isn't. Also, scientists tend to treat their particular view of truth as obvious and universal. They think everyone should agree with their view. This does make conversing with others who have different views of truth, like the religious, difficult.

 

A conversation exploring different theories of truth is one that I'd be happy to engage in.

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44 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

Late to the thread, but I wanted to say that I think there is sonething to the OP. Much depends on how we define "true". This is a non-trivial problem, which may need further exploration if this conversation is to make headway.

 

I think it is correct to say that religions often attempt to establish different criteria for truth than the rest of us usually use. But I also think it's true that an awful lot of people don't really have a good theory of truth at all. We use the term loosely and naively, and as long as we don't run into problems,  we just carry on. I actually think that religions try to be less naive about their theories of truth than many secular people do. This is because they have a definite doctrine and an organizational structure. By contrast,  there are no official secular teachings on this matter. There are different theories,  but no one is saying "to be secular,  you must believe this". Philosophers think about these kinds of things,  but scientists, in my experience,  often just take for granted that truth is well-defined and well-understood, even when it isn't. Also, scientists tend to treat their particular view of truth as obvious and universal. They think everyone should agree with their view. This does make conversing with others who have different views of truth, like the religious, difficult.

 

A conversation exploring different theories of truth is one that I'd be happy to engage in.

Well this...this just expressed something I have lately preocuppied with. I am trying to learn some things, and I observed that many times some scientists when presenting opinions are philosophically not sophisticated enough when making certain claims. It is my humble observation that any opinions HAS an underlying theory of truth, even IF one is unconscious of it. Only be reflecting and then seeing them in the conscious mind can fruitful discussions be had. Otherwise it is like we are speaking other languages, while thinking we speak the same one. I see this in psychology, where discussion about meaning,happiness tend to be wholly too superficial in my opinion.

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2 minutes ago, Myrkhoos said:

Well this...this just expressed something I have lately preocuppied with. I am trying to learn some things, and I observed that many times some scientists when presenting opinions are philosophically not sophisticated enough when making certain claims.

 

I've felt this way for a long time. Many scientists treat philosophy as a dead discipline. Some even state this explicitly. The problem is, scientists make philosophical claims all the time, and often, as you point out,  their claims lack sophistication.

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2 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Prevailing belief? Do you have evidence to support the assertion that ex christians have a prevailing belief that christians must know everything god knows? I've never heard of such a thing. And the questions that ex christians are asking of christians doesn't entail that they know everything that a god knows. They are much simpler questions than that. Let's first get the accusation established before going any further with it. 

 

Josh, 

 

If you read what LogicalFallacy wrote in answer to my questions, when he was a Christian he expected God to completely reveal Himself.  Which would mean that he would then know everything that God knew.  Such is the nature of a complete revelation.  Anything less cannot be granted as 'complete'.  If God revealed only what LF needed to know as a human being, then God wouldn't be completely revealing Himself, would he?  Complete means nothing less than complete.  

 

2 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

You seem a little confused coming here new and trying to make sense of what you're seeing going on in the forums. That's ok. We should be able to clarify the confusion pretty easily. 

 

As to your point, yes, science and religion shouldn't be used to do something they can not. The point is a good point. I'm not sure why anyone would try and argue with it. If scientists treat science like a religion where they are believing in that which is unproven, they've screwed up. Science shouldn't be treated that way. 

 

 

The problem here is that no one said that god has revealed himself fully and completely. Some christians might say that, but we don't think that way.

 

But LF's used to think that way, when he was a Christian.  So, up until today he'd have been entirely justified in expecting the Christians in this forum to believe the same thing.  And so that expectation would figure prominently in the way he questions them.  He would have used his old mindset to guide his questioning.  That's what playing Devil's Advocate is all about.  Thinking like others.  

 

But, if that's not the case and I've misread things, I'll certainty offer my apology to any offended party.

 

2 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

And what I'm asking of christians DOESN'T require that a god has revealed himself fully as far as what his plan consists of. It's a non issue against my line of questioning. All we need to know is that the bible reveals god as such and such, it gives attributes. If we take what is revealed about god and then reason through what is revealed, contradictions in logic and necessarily conclusions follow. That's what we're addressing. We're not asking to know what remains mysterious. We're asking why they believe in a long list of self contradiction? 

 

Is it mysterious that the bible says god is all good, or all knowing, or all powerful, or all present? Those claims each come with implications. Trying to avoid the necessary implications constitutes a dodge, a evasion, turning a blind eye to what is black and white simple and obvious. There's nothing mysterious about that. 

 

But have you considered the possibility that a Christian can do what Alice in Wonderland spoke of?  To believe six impossible things before breakfast?  You are using tools of human intellect like logic, discounting anything that doesn't conform to your, entirely-human understanding of that logic.  As far a Christian is concerned, the God of the Bible could effortlessly cause 6 million impossible things to happen before breakfast.  Using your human logic, can you categorically declare that this is impossible?

 

Surely you must qualify your use of logic by saying that it can only apply in the realm of human understanding, because that's where it originates and that's it's limitation?  And so we're back to the point I made earlier.  Just as it is unreasonable to ask science to do something that it cannot and just as it is unreasonable to ask religion to do something that it cannot - so it is also unreasonable to ask human logic to do something that it cannot.

 

Human logic cannot categorically rule out anything beyond the limits of human understanding.  All it can do is to declare such a thing beyond it's scope or remit.  Just as science declares that there are things beyond it and religion declares that there are things beyond it.  

 

But I can hear you yelling, 'That's all we've got to go on!  Human intellect and the tools of human intellect!'  I agree.  We have no choice.  But we do have a choice in recognizing that our intellect is limited and that our tools must also be limited in what they can do.  We can recognize that we have a tool for use in certain areas, but not in others.  To use it as if it applied to that which we do not know or cannot know is to misuse that tool.

 

Perhaps the best we can do is to say that, by the standards of our limited human intellects, God cannot do 6 million impossible things before breakfast.

 

What say you?

 

2 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

 

I welcome this sort of internal criticism of the ex christian community. I do think that we need to be sharp and careful in consideration. Here, I'll drop a link to my last informal debate with a youtube apologist: 

 

 

 

I spoke of science, but didn't make it the end all of the debate. The main focus is on the self contradiction of the bible itself. And philosophical issues surrounding biblical claims and biblical contradictions. 

 

 

If you peer review the informal debate you'll find that while I mentioned cosmology, I was more focused on the agnostic aspect that underlies it all. Craig and others don't have any evidence that they know ultimate reality, and neither do sciences have the evidence that reveals ultimate reality. Everyone is on equal footing in terms of agnostic. We just don't know. But, and here's where the christians fall into a hole, they claim that they do know ultimate reality by claiming that their god IS ultimate reality. And they commit intellectual dishonesty by asserting that they know that which is unknown. 

 

I will chec k this out in due time, Josh.

 

2 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

If anyone else does this, they will fail in the same way. No one can claim to know that the multiverse exists if they don't actually know that. 

 

These philosophical issues form a basis and foundation that runs deeper than the scientific issues. And that's one of my points. Knowledge and not knowledge needs to be used as a guide when navigating scientific issues, theories and cosmology. So when I christian tries to pin me down about science, notice how easily I roll the accusation off? They can not pin me down about science because I do not profess to believing in science in the way that someone believes in religion. LuthAMF kept trying to pin me down like that. As if I'm some stereo typical atheist who thinks exactly according to his asserted stereo type of how atheist's think and what atheist's think. But he was wrong, again and again. 

 

Anywho, you're welcome to peer review me any time. I don't take offense. I welcome the feed back. 

 

Thanks. 

 

Yes, I'm aware that many Christians misunderstand science, believing that it delivers absolute knowledge and/or absolute truth. 

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

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22 minutes ago, WalterP said:

 

If you read what LogicalFallacy wrote in answer to my questions, when he was a Christian he expected God to completely reveal Himself.  Which would mean that he would then know everything that God knew.  Such is the nature of a complete revelation.  Anything less cannot be granted as 'complete'.  If God revealed only what LF needed to know as a human being, then God wouldn't be completely revealing Himself, would he?  Complete means nothing less than complete

This might be a bit of a stretch, here, in the sense that I can, and have, completely revealed myself to my missus; but she still doesn't know the first thing about culturing mammalian cells or DNA extraction, both of which are pretty basic knowledge for me.

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12 hours ago, Joshpantera said:
8 hours ago, WalterP said:

Josh, science and religion are absolute equals when either is asked to do something that it cannot.  That is my point.  I've just shown that scripture doesn't support the idea that God ever revealed Himself fully and completely and laid bare all mysteries.  The prevailing belief among Ex-Christians that Christians must know everything God knows is just wrong.

 

I'm pulling the context again for review. 

 

9 hours ago, WalterP said:

Josh, 

 

If you read what LogicalFallacywrote in answer to my questions, when he was a Christian he expected God to completely reveal Himself.  Which would mean that he would then know everything that God knew.  Such is the nature of a complete revelation.  Anything less cannot be granted as 'complete'.  If God revealed only what LF needed to know as a human being, then God wouldn't be completely revealing Himself, would he?  Complete means nothing less than complete.  

 

This is why I was confused by the assertion that we have a prevailing belief as ex christians.

 

I'll let LF argue his own stance. But somehow LF's opinion was conflated into a prevailing belief of ex christians and this website in general. That's not a prevailing belief to my knowledge. And I don't know what LF meant by it. So we can set that aside in terms of concern for the ex christian community in general or at large. 

 

9 hours ago, WalterP said:

But have you considered the possibility that a Christian can do what Alice in Wonderland spoke of?  To believe six impossible things before breakfast?  You are using tools of human intellect like logic, discounting anything that doesn't conform to your, entirely-human understanding of that logic.  As far a Christian is concerned, the God of the Bible could effortlessly cause 6 million impossible things to happen before breakfast.  Using your human logic, can you categorically declare that this is impossible?

 

Yes, that's what I'm teasing out about these christians. They will not likely be convinced of anything or change their minds. They may, but it's not likely. So I'm only concerned with using them as examples of ill logic, dead end streets, internal inconsistency, and big bluffs and blow hard's who rail about "truth" and yet can't manage to demonstrate anything that amounts to truth when challenged. We are here to support and encourage ex christians and struggling christians. We are not here to pamper, cater to, or bridge the gap with christian believers. They are limited to this debate forum for the most part. They are not allowed to run around proselytizing all over our forums. We have a clearly stated mission and purpose. 

 

So all of the dialogue you see around here is to the benefit of ex christians and those leaving the faith. These debates that we have are to benefit those people in particular. Not to reverse proselytize christians into seeing the light and extending olive branches. We don't care if they understand us or not. They likely will not understand us unless or until they are ready to understand us for some reason. If they doubt on their own or start questioning things like the rest of us then they can join as ex christians if they like. But until then, they are example figures of poor thinking, poor logic, poor reasoning abilities, and so on and so fourth. So we hammer away and they continue to flounder around at our questions and newbies can witness how weak the christian arguments actually are when challenged. 

 

9 hours ago, WalterP said:

Perhaps the best we can do is to say that, by the standards of our limited human intellects, God cannot do 6 million impossible things before breakfast.

 

What say you?

 

 

You've come in new recently. I enjoy your posts and logical thinking. I just want to get you up to speed on where we're at in terms of generality around here. I agree that human intellect is limited. And your conclusion holds true enough. Impossible things are not being done in terms of we don't observe impossible things being done, only possible things. Because anything that happens does so because it's possible to do so. But I get the drift. You are trying to be philosophically correct using correct language, carefully to convey your thoughts. 

 

9 hours ago, WalterP said:

Yes, I'm aware that many Christians misunderstand science, believing that it delivers absolute knowledge and/or absolute truth. 

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

You may enjoy the informal debate. If you catch me off with logic or reason I'd like to know the details so I can correct my approach where possible. 

 

Thanks again.  

 

 

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I come from a strand of Christianity which puts much emphasis on its mystical interpretation, namely the Eastern Orthodox, as shown by its monasticism being quite central. I mean they decided long ago that only monks can be bishops. 

 

So, there is a tension, a recognised one , that, in a sense, all theological explanations are in a sense absurd and incomplete and serve only as temporary crutches in understanding and asceticism. 

 

The problem here, recognised by certain science AND theology is that our models of reality are ever changing and incomplete. So on the claim of absolute truth, everybody is fundamentally agnostic. What we have are models and certain ways of verificatiin which seem highly plausible at some time, corresponding to empirical tests and bearing internal consistency. So, in a way, we are all taking leaps of faith and risks every day and every moment. 

 

A brief example. A man has conviction that his god exists. As he changes, his ideas and experience of hi.self, of God and the process of existence change too. So while he may use the same words, their internal meaning changed, possibly contradicting the old one. So has de converted and re converted? Depends on what you mean by that.

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1 hour ago, Joshpantera said:

 

I'm pulling the context again for review. 

 

This is why I was confused by the assertion that we have a prevailing belief as ex christians.

 

I'll let LF argue his own stance. But somehow LF's opinion was conflated into a prevailing belief of ex christians and this website in general. That's not a prevailing belief to my knowledge. And I don't know what LF meant by it. So we can set that aside in terms of concern for the ex christian community in general or at large. 

 

Josh, 

 

If I've misread things, then I'm sorry. 

 

Right now, the point I'd like you to consider is this.  If our definition of what constitutes the truth uses only the modern Western, logic-based one, then it's no wonder that this definition will always be at odds with a Judaic definition of what constitutes the truth.  The Western and Judaic ways do not agree.  The two systems of thought are incompatible.  So, I contend that it's fundamentally wrong to try and understand the Judaic Bible, using a system of thought that's antagonistic to the Jewish way of thinking.  

 

Let me explain further.  The birth of our Western tradition can be traced back to the ancient Greeks.  https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Pre-Socratic_philosophy

The pre-Socratic philosophers were the first ones to employ the principle of Reductionism.  They looked at the wide variety of natural phenomenon and through categorization, classification and comparison, tried to find simpler, underlying principles.  They tried to reduce the complicated whole into simpler parts.  2,500 years later, this is almost exactly the same principle used in science.  Observe something.  Classify and categorize what you see.  Can what is observed be reduced to an underlying principle or mechanism?   If so, test it with experiment.  The pre-Socratics would recognize this system of thought.  It's the system that's come to dominate today's technological world.  It also seems to be the prevailing system used in this forum.

 

But is it the right tool to use to understand the Bible?  If you look back at my opening post, you'll see that I quote from this book .https://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-History-Truth-Consolations-Post-Truth/dp/1786488884  The author writes... Religion does not just promote different truths, it advocates different grounds of truth

 

The Western tradition advocates a logic-based, reductionist ground of truth.  However, the books of the Bible weren't written in this tradition.  The Jews had their own, unique way of viewing reality, one that doesn't square with the Western way.  So, if the Western way is exclusively used in this forum, it will always find the Bible to be fraught with illogical thinking, contradictions and inconsistencies. If you use the Western grounds of truth to decide the 'truth' of the non-Western Bible, you will always find it to be wrong.  

 

Do you see what I'm driving at, Josh?  

 

Quote

 

 

Yes, that's what I'm teasing out about these christians. They will not likely be convinced of anything or change their minds. They may, but it's not likely. So I'm only concerned with using them as examples of ill logic, dead end streets, internal inconsistency, and big bluffs and blow hard's who rail about "truth" and yet can't manage to demonstrate anything that amounts to truth when challenged. We are here to support and encourage ex christians and struggling christians. We are not hear to pamper, cater to, or bridge the gap with christian believers. They are limited to this debate forum for the most part. They are not allowed to run around proselytizing all over our forums. We have a clearly stated mission and purpose. 

 

So all of the dialogue you see around here is to the benefit of ex christians and those leaving the faith. These debates that we have are to benefit those people in particular. Not to reverse proselytize christians into seeing the light and extending olive branches. We don't care if they understand us or not. They likely will not understand us unless or until they are ready to understand us for some reason. If they doubt on their own or start questioning things like the rest of us then they can join as ex christians if they like. But until then, they are example figures of poor thinking, poor logic, poor reasoning abilities, and so on and so fourth. So we hammer away and they continue to flounder around at our questions and newbies can witness how weak the christian arguments actually are when challenged. 

 

 

You've come in new recently. I enjoy your posts and logical thinking. I just want to get you up to speed on where we're at in terms of generality around here. I agree that human intellect is limited. And your conclusion holds true enough. Impossible things are not being done in terms of we don't observe impossible things being done, only possible things. Because anything that happens does so because it's possible to do so. But I get the drift. You are trying to be philosophically correct using correct language, carefully to convey your thoughts. 

 

Yes, that's right.  I'm trying to be careful.  That's why I'm trying to convey this new idea to you.  The idea that your chosen (Western) method of analyzing the Bible will always find the (non-Western) Bible to be wrong.  If the method, tool or procedure that you're using always gives you the answer 'Wrong' how do you really know if that's a reliable result?

 

For example, here in merry olde England we had an ignoble tradition (long past, thankfully) of Witch trials.  If a woman was suspected of witchcraft the 'test' of her guilt or innocence was for a priest to bless the village pond, so that the water became holy water.  Then the poor woman was thrown in.  If the water embraced her (i.e. she drowned) she was declared innocent.  But if she remained afloat, then the holy water was rejecting her as evil.  Her guilt was plain to see.  She'd be pulled out and be burned at the stake.  Ok, this example is a blatant case of reductio ad absurdum.  But the point is made.  This method always resulted in a dead woman.  Her actual guilt or innocence was never properly established by the use of this particular method.  Faulty method!

 

So Josh, if your chosen method always tells you that the Bible is faulty,  could that be due to some inherent incompatibility between your method and the Bible?  

 

What say you?

 

Quote

 

You may enjoy the informal debate. If you catch me off with logic or reason I'd like to know the details so I can correct my approach where possible. 

 

Thanks again.  

 

 

 

I'll certainly do that, Josh.

 

But I'll also ask you to question whether logic and reason are the only ways open to you.

 

Thanks.

 

Walter.

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Reading this thread as a relative outsider, it seems to me to almost be the case that people are essentially taking different languages. This makes conversing difficult. I think we need to get clear on what "truth" is supposed to mean if we are going to move forward. 

 

I'm not sure exactly where to start with this. It's a big topic. Recently,  though,  I've been finding it helpful to distinguish between ontological and epistemic modes of truth. It's a bit hard to explain precisely what I mean by this, but roughly speaking, something is ontologically true if it is true in and of itself. Ontological truths are brute facts about the world. For example, I'm looking at a chair right now. It is composed of wood, and has a certain mass. These are ontological truths. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks about it. If the chair's mass is 5kg, then that's just its mass. A brute fact.

 

Epistemic truths are different. These are things which are true in virtue of the fact that we think they are true. If everyone died tomorrow, the chair's mass wouldn't change. That's the mark of an ontological truth. But if everyone died tomorrow,  would it still be a chair? I say no. It's a chair in virtue of the fact that that is what we think of it as. That it is a chair is an epistemic truth.

 

There are many other examples of things which are true epistemically, but not ontologically. Money is valuable only because we think it is. Now, we need to be a little bit careful. I don't mean to suggest that epistemic truths aren't really true, or that they aren't objective. Money has value irrespective of what any individual person thinks. It is objectively and truly valuable. But it isn't valuable irrespective of what everybody thinks. If everyone decided tomorrow that money wasn't worth anything, then it would no longer be valuable. Thus, the value of money is epistemic rather than ontological in nature.

 

A thought I've been having lately is that Chrustianity (and possibly religions in general...) tries to treat the existence of God as the only ontological truth. Everything else is epistemic, because it is true only in virtue of the fact that God thinks it is true. This differs significantly from the view that most secularists take, and I think that this may help to explain the point raised in the OP about different grounds for truth,  but I need to think more about this.

 

Another thing I need to think more about is the connection between this picture of ontological and epistemic truths and the various traditional philosophical theories of truth. My instinct is to say that ontological truths are those described by the correspondence theory, whereas epistemic truths might be better described by coherence and pragmatic theories,  but I'm not sure about this. 

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14 hours ago, WalterP said:

Really, LogicalFallacy?  That doesn't seem to accord with scripture very well.

 

Bear in mind these are positions I held that was doctrine of my Church. If you think my above posts don't accord with scripture very well you should see the rest of our doctrine! (Possibly part of the reason I started having questions). But again this is the problem with Christianity isn't it? You are basing your entire response to me based on YOUR interpretation of the scriptures from when you were a Christian.  Heard of Kent Hovind and Ray Comfort? Both fundy YEC Christians. Yet they differ on a substation piece of doctrine being how one is saved.

 

Also heard of Calvinists? They believed (as did we) that God has predestined his chosen ones. Non Calvinists believe one can have free will to choose to believe and thus be chosen.

 

Now BOTH positions can be supported by scripture so I generally reject your assertion that my beliefs surrounding the revealing of God didn't accord with scripture very well. One of the great things about scripture is that it can be used to support near any belief. 

Quote

Surely you meant that you prayed for God to reveal enough of Himself to you for you to know and understand Him better?  Enough and Better aren't complete, are they?

 

No. I meant what I wrote. Unlike scripture, generally you don't have to interpret my writing. Unlike God, if I appear unclear you merely need to ask and I will attempt to clarify.

 

Quote

I don't believe he exists either, LogicalFallacy.  But what I believe now doesn't stop me from re-entering the mindset I used to have, in order to gain a better dialogue with the Christians in this forum.  That's the whole point of using the technique known as being a Devil's Advocate.  You step into the other's shoes and think as they do, to test the validity of their thinking.  Have you never done this?

 

I do it all the time, which is why I don't talk about religion with the family because I know their mindset. Discussion there is pointless and brings conflict so we have a truce where they don't preach to me, and I don't tell them they are full of B/S.

 

Quote

 Sorry, but I think that the Zeus question isn't relevant.  Yes, I know that you're comparing what you consider to be two non-existent beings.  However, neither of us are Ex-Zeusians are we?   So, you and I can only speak about what we know and what we used to know. 

 

Fair enough.

 

Quote

But, as I've outlined above, from a Biblical perspective, you could not have survived if God completely revealed Himself to you.  Every time in scripture, when God reveals even a minute fraction of His power, humans are overcome and are terrified.  Look at John 18 : 1 - 8, especially verse 6.  Jesus spoke the name of God, 'I AM'.  This small display of power caused Judas Iscariot, a detachment of soldiers, the officials of the chief priest and the Pharisees to draw back and fall to the ground.   And that's just two little words.

 

Again you are forgetting about the interlink between scripture and doctrine. We were well aware of what was in the bible, but we also believed that we were at the end times and that God would reveal himself to his chosen, and when he did the rapture would take place. You are attempting to go hard-line down the scripture without taking into account wider doctrine. We are essentially two Christians here arguing about our respective doctrines like Hovind and Comfort. (Apologies for comparing us to them - perish the thought!)

 

But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. (Revelation 10:7)

 

The mystery of God should be finished. In other words God would reveal himself.

 

Quote

If you want further evidence from scripture, trying looking at the reactions of the apostles Peter, John and James during Jesus' Transfiguration.  They were witnessing a very limited display of god's infinite power, not a complete one.  Yet, they were overcome with fear.  A complete revelation would have destroyed them utterly! 

*Christian hat on*

Brother Walter, has it occurred to you that you have a legalistic interpretation of the scripture and are not letting the holy spirit guide you? Are you not open to God revealing himself. God has sent his word, but he also reveals himself to us personally.

/hat off

 

 

Quote

Surely, if God wants us to know Him, then He knows full well that He cannot reveal His full and complete self to us?

/hat on

What kind of limited being is your God? You think God made the universe, and humans IN HIS IMAGE, for him not to be able to reveal himself?

/hat off

 

This is an ironic logical problem. God makes the universe in which we are the pinnacle of creation. Sons and daughters of God. As a man and his wife so is Christ and his bride. And yet we are apparently less than the ants we crush without knowing it. Which is why my Church adopted the belief that God could and would reveal himself as a husband and wife do... metaphorically speaking. 

 

Quote

 If God is all-knowing then He would know that He can only reveal Himself partially to us.  Therefore, the statement that humans simply cannot understand God completely isn't necessarily an evasion tactic.  It's an absolute necessity for God to keep Himself mostly hidden from our eyes and our understanding.

 

It is an evasion tactic, and one borne out of the failure to think logically through the bible. If you view is that we humans are merely play things of God, then your position is reasonable for you. But if your view is that humans are made in Gods image, that we are children of God, then your position is illogical. 

 

Quote

The idea I'm putting forward LogicalFallacy, is one of sufficiency.  The Bible doesn't reveal ALL, it reveal sufficient for the needs of the believers.  God doesn't reveal ALL of Himself, but only what is sufficient for the believers.  Can you see how scripture doesn't support your notion of complete revelation, but does support the my idea of sufficiency?

 

/hat on

I, and my fellow church members from my Christian, days agree the bible doesn't reveal all... which is why God would reveal himself to his people in the last days!

/hat off

 

Our contrasting positions in this dialogue is one of doctrinal and interpretation differences. You cannot logically assert your position as true. You have merely adopted one interpretation of scripture, which with my Christian hat on (stepping into shoes as you'd say) I would say you are overly legalistic and lacking revelation. Cold, formal, luke warm, and god will spew thee from his mouth.

 

 

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12 hours ago, WalterP said:

Josh, 

 

If I've misread things, then I'm sorry. 

 

Right now, the point I'd like you to consider is this.  If our definition of what constitutes the truth uses only the modern Western, logic-based one, then it's no wonder that this definition will always be at odds with a Judaic definition of what constitutes the truth.  The Western and Judaic ways do not agree.  The two systems of thought are incompatible.  So, I contend that it's fundamentally wrong to try and understand the Judaic Bible, using a system of thought that's antagonistic to the Jewish way of thinking.  

 

In terms of generality, you seem to have misread the situation, yes. We have no such belief as a group or anything like that. 

 

Let's look at this. True or false, the world was created in 6 literal days, each day consisting of an "evening and morning," where days can exist without the existence of the sun or any star in the universe? No gray area. True or false? 

 

While it may have been true enough to some bronze aged Israelite, it wasn't actually true at all. Not in the sense of being true. I don't think that it does any good to try and stretch truth to the point where it encompasses that which can be evident as false. What someone once thought of as true, was not the case. So it was false. Had they spent any time carefully considering the claim they could have known that it was false. Origen, in fact, spoke out on the 6 day creation and pointed out how taken literally, it's nonsensical. But he favored a mystical, symbolic reading. He was also branded a heretic over the same said work. Parting ways with orthodox christianity. I'm assuming that you know what I'm talking about. If not I'll provide citation. 

 

12 hours ago, WalterP said:

Can what is observed be reduced to an underlying principle or mechanism?   If so, test it with experiment.  The pre-Socratics would recognize this system of thought.  It's the system that's come to dominate today's technological world.  It also seems to be the prevailing system used in this forum.

 

But is it the right tool to use to understand the Bible?  If you look back at my opening post, you'll see that I quote from this book .https://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-History-Truth-Consolations-Post-Truth/dp/1786488884  The author writes... Religion does not just promote different truths, it advocates different grounds of truth

 

I understand that the writers were not speaking in terms of what modern christians think they were. That's part of the debate. I introduce placing the writers back into their own historical, contemporary setting. But at the end of the day the writers are long dead. What we have now are the issues of today. And those issues entail people like WLC, for instance, trying to assert that the bible is correct and science is verifying it, which, is completely wrong. Wrong as in not true. A "ground of truth," that isn't actually true or correct if you will. 

 

12 hours ago, WalterP said:

Yes, that's right.  I'm trying to be careful.  That's why I'm trying to convey this new idea to you.  The idea that your chosen (Western) method of analyzing the Bible will always find the (non-Western) Bible to be wrong.  If the method, tool or procedure that you're using always gives you the answer 'Wrong' how do you really know if that's a reliable result?

 

It says that evenings and mornings were taken place three days before the existence of the sun or any other star. That's universally wrong, universally incorrect. What was the light source for an evening and morning without the sun? That's what I asked the apologist. I've heard answers ranging from 'I don't know' to suggesting that it was the light of god or jesus (logos). That's great, except for one thing. Day and night, evening and morning only exist due to facing towards or away from a FINITE light source that can be faced towards or away from.

 

So my next question, is god or jesus finite or infinite and eternal at the creation of the earth according to scripture? If infinite and eternal, then light would be all around, all encompassing. What would be night, or darkness, in the all presence, of infinite and eternal light? The apology becomes increasing nonsensical as it devolves. The apologist digs the hole deeper and deeper. 

 

And let me ask you, what sort of "ground of truth" value is there in what the bible claims from the outset in Genesis 1? What's true about it? I'm demonstrating exactly and precisely what's false about the bible from it's outset. That is the theme of the debate. For the benefit of people who are afraid of these big blow hard's and their threats of hell fire damnation for all those who don't believe their "truth!" 

 

12 hours ago, WalterP said:

So Josh, if your chosen method always tells you that the Bible is faulty,  could that be due to some inherent incompatibility between your method and the Bible?  

 

What say you?

 

I don't think that you can successfully manage the argument you're trying to make, to be honest. Refer to my questions to you.

 

You seem to think that truth is loosey goosey, and relative, subjective. But that strains what we mean by truth in this day and age. We don't mean something that's blatantly false but we'll call it truth anyways. We mean correct. Right. Something is true - real, not imagined. 

 

My method tells me that the bible is faulty because my method tells me that "evenings and mornings" are without cause, short of the existence of a solar orb or finite light producing object that I can be faced towards or away from relative to the black of space. It's the method of observing how the world and universe work, and checking people's claims against that global, if not universal reality of human experience. Call it Greek, call it what you will. It's the closest I can come to what is evident, and actual. 

 

Apparently Genesis 1 goes back to times before they realized that the sun is the SOURCE of day light. They thought that day and night existed independent of the sun and moon. They thought that the sun, moon, and stars were place into the already existing day and night skies. They thought that the moon was it's own light source. And that the earth was a flat, round disk with a dome overhead, where the sun and moon took turns circling around the earth. I cited Dr. Steven Mattei during the debate (in several places) who outlines very carefully the contemporary period in which the writer of Genesis 1 was living, and thinking within. It's contradicting to us now because we now know different than what the writer of Genesis 1 knew. His truth, or his ground of truth, if you will, wasn't actually true at all. It was false the entire time and it's still false today. 

 

I'll let you digest and get back with me. 

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I guess I don't understand why people are not secure in their own perspectives.  I don't see that here based on the need for people to agree to their version of truth...

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If the Bibke revelation WAS sufficient for belief, everyone would believe. 

 

This again brings forth the question of what is belief and its connection to choice. I would argue this is a very important topic.

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4 hours ago, Myrkhoos said:

If the Bibke revelation WAS sufficient for belief, everyone would believe. 

 

This again brings forth the question of what is belief and its connection to choice. I would argue this is a very important topic.

 

Another important topic indeed.

 

There's also a connection between truth and knowledge that needs to be explored in any robust theory of truth. And, of course, the distinction between knowledge and belief.

 

Very briefly, I think belief is basically thinking that a proposition is true. A proposition does not have to actually be true in order for it to be believed, but it does need to be convincing enough to persuade the believer.

 

I think of knowledge as firmly held belief. When you know something, you really think it's true. Many things that we know are actually true, but I don't think it's correct to say that knowledge is necessarily true. Knowledge requires a much higher level of justification than mere belief. If I walk up to a bus stop and ask a stranger "did I miss the bus" and he says "yes", I'll probably end up believing that I missed the bus, but I wouldn't say that I know I missed the bus. That would be going too far. If I ran up to the bus stop as the bus was pulling away, I would say I know that I missed the bus, because I just saw it leave. But I might still be wrong. Maybe the bus that pulled away was the previous bus, which was running late, and the bus I was trying to catch will arrive in 2 minutes. So I differ from the traditional "justified true belief" account of knowledge. I think that knowledge concerns what we firmly believe to be true, and that there is often necessarily a gap between our beliefs and the actual truth.

 

At the risk of being tedious, I want to connect the above to what I said earlier about epistemic and ontological truths. Because epistemic truths are true in virtue of what we think, knowledge of epistemic truths is on a much more secure foundation than knowledge of ontological truths. To use the example I gave before, I know that money is valuable. There simply is no question that this is true. In fact, in a very real sense, it's true precisely because we know it to be true. But I also want to say that I know that the earth revolves around the sun. This is an ontological claim, and I certainly have very good reasons for believing it. I'm completely convinced of it on the basis of scientific evidence, so I say I know it to be true. But the history of science is riddled with things that we used to know, and now regard as false. It wasn't so long ago that many people knew that the sun went around the earth. And they were wrong. This is where the gap between truth and knowledge comes into play. I think usually this gap arises for claims about knowledge of ontological truths, which is the type of knowledge that science attempts to generate.

 

There's a lot more that can be said here about the nature of science, the type of knowledge it generates, and the way it does this. There's also the question of choosing beliefs, which I haven't addressed at all. I'm not sure of the extent to which this is directly relevant to this thread, though,  so I'll leave it there for now. I'm happy to go on if people are interested. If it turns out not to be relevant here, we can take a deep dive into these things elsewhere. I'm also happy to be disagreed with about these things. I'm still trying to piece a lot of these thoughts together, so challenges and objections are more than welcome.

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On 10/31/2019 at 10:50 AM, florduh said:

If something is undefined, then what are we talking about? There is nothing there to declare wrong/untrue/faulty. It's undefined. What am I missing?

 

On 10/31/2019 at 1:17 PM, florduh said:

Seems to me if someone can't define their beliefs, then they actually have no beliefs.

That’s rich….

 

Of course, it seems like you got that nugget of pyrite from the pseudo- logic of Dr. House. 😷

 

Can I define what I believe, I think I just did when I said ‘it seems like you got that nugget of pyrite from the pseudo-logic of Dr. House. ‘ :dance:

 

Or do I have to include I believe when I said ‘ it seems like you got that nugget of pyrite from the pseudo- logic of Dr. House.’  If I do then then let me rephase my belief ‘I believe you got that nugget of pyrite from the pseudo- logic of Dr. House.’

 

Since define is defined as ‘state or describe exactly’ then what part of, ‘ it seems like you got that nugget of pyrite from the pseudo- logic of Dr. House.’ don’t you understand what I believe.

 

Can I define my belief any clearer that what I stated and described what I believe when I said  ‘it seems like you got that nugget of pyrite from the pseudo- logic of Dr. House.’:ouch:

 

So can you define your belief that there is no God without proving that you don't have any belief that God doesn't exist if it seems to you that if a person who can't  define what they believe don't really have any belief .  So let's hear what you believe when you say defining one beliefs.  Then prove it, unless you claim that proving it wasn't what you required. :liar:

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