How do we know?

Why can't we? Your position doesn't seem to be that of a logical positivist who might say that the word "god" doesn't refer to anything therefore we can't make any meaningful statements that contain that word. I could say for example that I'm 12 ft. tall. Measurement would prove the statement false but I don't see what prevents me from saying it.Why is "YOU" (PaulK) evil?lfen

Alright, the rest of my reply. I have never known anyone to say it is impossible to know anything about God, IOW that he is completely "beyond human understanding". It is surely possible that in our present state it is impossible for us to know EVERYTHING about God.I don't see how understanding God COMPLETELY and not at all must be mutually exclusive with no partial understanding in the middle. At least he leaves no evidence to be compiled into data through repeatable verifiable scientific experiment. But then... if he did this, how would we know it was from him and not just some new natural law? It is certainly a possibility that he has and continues to break the natural laws on occasion. If he did this, then the only trace of his presence would be seared into the memories of those who were witness to the event. This makes it impossible to reach God by trusting one's own intellect. If God is holding the natural laws in place that dictate the electrodynamic principles which hold together the air molecules we breath thus allowing mechanical waves to be formed and received by our ears. Surely God can do more than speak with no physical vocal apparatus. Shoot, he could even create a whole body right out of thin air if he really wanted to. Jesus said that God knows when every sparrow dies and has the hairs of our heads numbered. If this is the case then he is probably "amused" by a star going supernova 10 billion light years away. And besides that, there is no guarantee we are the only ones inhabiting this universe. In fact, if you accept the whole Christian belief package, we are most definately sharing the universe with other beings. Your assertion that he is only concerned with us is just an assertion and is contrary to what Christ taught. According to the Bible, there will be a time when all things are brought to account and He gives to each what each deserves. Who knows what that will be. If a man loves money more than God, perhaps God will give him all the money he wants and no one to share it with as his hell. In the end all who choose to be cut off from God who IS life simply cease to exist. IOW there is no life apart from God. And this is really not much different than what you expect to happen anyway. What is unreasonable is your dogmatic adherence to this assumption that GOD, whom you do not even claim to know or believe, would surely behave how YOU, a mere man, think that he should if he existed. If he was, would he still be God? You want it to be easy. If it was clear, it would be easy. I wish it was easy too. But why should it be? Even in our own lives many endeavors of greatest worth are not easy. Well, God sorta created the culture for the Jews. And their were always turning away from Him and turning back to him. When Jesus came, they had created cultural traditions unfounded in the law. He rebuked them for this. The words never changed, but you are right in saying the people did. Does this mean God changed? No. Now with the coming Messiah, God did change the covanent with his people (this was predicted by the prophet Hosea, BTW), but God's character did not change at all. Throughout the centuries, churches, like the nation Israel, turned away from God's words in favor of culture or tradition. And what about things that are not of this world? You do not believe in things that are not of this world? Why not? You have no scientific justification of a belief in something other than this world. Therefore, you believe science is really the only way to learn about reality. And thus my statement is verified that Atheists believe all that is knowable in reality can be found through science. I can! But not with repeatable verifiable scientific experimentation. This is not possible. Even if we all made a field trip to PurpleYoku's haunted house, and we all witnessed the things he has witnessed for the last 25 years, and we all turned the house inside out looking for alternative explanations, you would still accept the most far-fetched natural explanation over the spirit beings explanation. And even if you did accept the explanation that there were beings of a different nature inhabiting his house, you would still have no proof of God, only that there is an operating intelligence in our universe not previously discovered.Even if God appeared to to all of us in such a profound way that you changed your entire outlook on life and decided to believe in him, you would STILL not have proof to show anyone else. Even if God struck you blind and then healed you at the sound of his voice which we all heard, others like yourself would say it was a burst blood vessel in your head and a strange coincidence of heightened sensory sensitivity and re-arranged memories.I believe in God. I believe in the miracles Christ performed. I believe in the miracles he has performed in my friend's lives. I believe in the veracity of other's like Purple's claims that they have witnessed supernatural intelligence. I choose to accept them and have no reason to reject them even if I may have my own doubts. Because there is no predictable pattern to personal revelation. I would also really like to know what scientific investigations you are speaking of. Could you provide any links? Sure, it is a possibility that this could be the cause for some or all. But is it? This is where our free will comes in. God says, "Here's the information. You've been given a gift. Now you choose what to do with it." Oh I know! I just needed to end my post with a cliche. You're a nice guy and easy to get along with. ...just stubborn sometimes... like me.This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 11-21-2004 11:21 PM

Thanks, I've been an admin since the end of the summer, but then I had to all but quit participating once I got busy with school.

Well, humans are spiritual beings too I believe. Not all misinformation is generated from demons, but how much of it is I cannot know. Could not churches that get bogged down and eventualy split over petty doctrinal debates be playing right into the hands of "Satan and his minions"? Just because the most visible "Christian" organizations become very superficial or cultural or traditional or literal does not mean that there are not a great many believers who have pure motives and the true ideals at the core of their beliefs. Oh yes, definately. Now I never said that, and I don't think there's too many Christians that hold that opinion either. I'm a fan of science. But science is limited to the physical universe. If there's something beyond the physical, then science cannot discover it. I agree. Paul specifically warned against meaningless arguments and against saying, "I follow him or her." We all follow Christ, not a certain individual's overinterpretation of certain passages. How do you know its not real? How do you know that I'm not actually seeing the true picture? There's no need to be frustrated because I do not accept or reject what neither of us can say with complete confidence that we know to be true. lol

Yeah, I know there is no NEED, it's just a desire on my part, and I tend to get over passionate about things at times. I'm not sure why I sometimes feel as strongly as I do, comes from wanting the world to be different from the way it is I suppose. That is one of my hinderances.I finally decided to add an avatar. Whaddya think of it?lfen

Good! Passion is a wonderful thing and a very good thing espeically when focused on the understanding of things that are possibly the most important things in life. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad you're passionate and frustrated with me. We all feel the same way when we believe we're right. That is why Christian fundies come in here and get all upset in a hurry. It's not JUST the fact that they have no knowledge of debate or philosophy or science, its also due to the fact that it angers, saddens, and frustrates them because they believe everyone else has gotten it wrong. Sweet! looks good.

No conflicting morals in Christianity ? I would have thought that everyone would know about the division over homosexuality - from liberals who accept it as morally neutral at worst all the way to Fred "God hates fags" Phelps. Or over the issue of divorce. Or the argument over whether women should be permitted to be priests or bishops.As to my judging God, I did not. I simply asked Hangdawg if he were willing to apply the SAME STANDARD he applied to Islam to Christianity.So where is my "evil" ? I don't see anything I've done in this thread that is as bad as your misrepresentation of what I said.

Hello HangdawgI was wondering, if you were on a jury for a murder trial and presented with evidence, and then prayed and felt that the lord was telling you the person was guilty, would you suppress this feeling and only consider the presented evidence or would you let your personal revelation influence your decision?

So so far supporters of the idea that there are valid religious ways of knowing claim:1) That the "knowledge" produced is probably untestable (at least by direct means)2) A significant proportion of this "knowledge" is false (and possibly represents intentional misinformation).They have yet to offer a real argument that ANY of it is true.So where's the justification for calling it "knowledge" ?

Hi Peeper, I would never base any significant decision on a mere "feeling".

Thanks for your reply. Neither can you offer any real argument that anything is really true. You have decided to accept only certain things that can be scientifically proven as "true" facts because this has practical value. What we decide to accept as "true" is a matter of choice and trust and delusion, not a "true" understanding of reality. That is precisely the question I am asking about EVERYTHING, science included. When we decide to say "I know" is a matter of practicality and choice, not of logical justification.If you were standing in the middle of the road and an 18-wheeler truck was headed straight towards you at 70 mph, and you said to me as I watched on the curb, "I believe the truck is real," but made no effort to move and then proceeded to talk about how nice the weather is today and how the kids are doing... do you REALLY believe the truck is about to run you over?It is the same way with God. If God exists the quest to understand him and find out what we are to do is no less pressing than an 18-wheeler bearing down on us. If we decide we believe in him, our belief that he is real must be complete. His existence defines our own. Therefore there can be no difference between "knowing" and "believing" that God exists in the mind of the believer.

Well epistemology is a pretty heavy subject. Rather than get into an in-depth discussion of it at this point I would rather take the generally accepted methods of "knowing" as given - and use them as a basis for comparison.For instance with your eigtheen-wheeler truck - I can hear and see such a thing with my own senses. The equivalent situation would be numerous people telling me that I would be run down by an invisible an inaudible truck unless I beleived as they told me - yet they all disagree on what I have to believe. Well you might say that I ought to guess or choose one I liked and try to delude myself into accepting that particular set of beliefs in case it might be right. But on the other hand since the whole thing makes no sense to me why should I try to make myself believe nonsense to evade a threat that - so far as I can tell - doesn't exist.In the same way if salvation were really dependent on following a correct doctrine we should not be in a situation where we have to guess and hope. We should be able to tell that a particular source is reliable rather than be put into a situation where we have to make a lucky guess. Still less should we have to delude ourselves into believing that a mere guess is unquestionable truth as you suggest.

Hangdawg13 That is not at all the case. We can in science not only show that something we model can be practically applied we can also make predictions based on that model for things we have not yet witnessed that we can investigate and test the model we use.Science has ways to demonstrate such things to be testable and they are independent of belief.
That these models do explain the world around us in ways that anyone who repeats them can use to arrive at the same result is what makes the arguement of its validity compelling.You need not accept as "true" that relativity is a valid explanation for phenomena in our world,however if you ignore this because it conflicts with your belief then you are left with trying to explain how the use of GPS is crippled when this model is not taken into account.
It becomes knowledge because anyone can use it to arrive at practical application in the world they interact with. That we know something is not necessarily that we can practically apply it.That we know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west need not ever impact into our day to day practical world.That we know the ratio of a circles circumference to its diameter is a number that remains constant no matter how large a circle we measure is can be logically arrived at and is considered real only in the sense that it does have practical value.I do not think there is anything in the realm of theology that comes close.In point of fact theology is proud and adamant that it is beyond investigation by science.That this is so is a matter of choice that can be made because it is unassailable by design.This message has been edited by sidelined, 11-29-2004 08:38 AM

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"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
--Don Hirschberg

Thanks for your reply. IOW, you want to take it as a given that the only knowable information that exists is what science and our senses alone can tell us. Well, with that presupposition I would also be an atheist. The truck analogy only applies to the believer and it in no way associates God with a threat, but rather shows how important he is if he exists. The unbeliever does not see the truck in the first place. The only purpose in this analogy was to show that there can be no difference between knowing and believing for the believer and that "faith without deeds is dead" (quite literally). So when a believer says, "I know" this or that, try to understand his position. He believes so strongly that it is the same as knowing. Furthermore he accepts a different set of presuppositions that you do not and neither of you can prove these presuppositions to be true or false, therefore you cannot say for sure whether what he "knows" is true or false. It is not a matter of guessing. It is a matter of trust, action, hope, and conscience. Believing in an unquestionable truth is not delusion. Believing we fully understand that truth is a delusion.

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IOW, you want to take it as a given that the only knowable information that exists is what science and our senses alone can tell us. Well, with that presupposition I would also be an atheist.

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That isn't what I said at all. What I take as given is that science and our senses DO contribute to our knowledge (as does logical deduction). The whole point in using generally accepted methods of "knowing" as a comparison is to give you a chance to argue for whatever additional ways of "knowing" you want to argue for. Except you don't seem to want to argue for it - presumably because you can't.And again your truck analogy - even restricted to your interpretation - is simply an invitation to self-delusion. Maybe your attitude explains a lot of creationist "thinking" - it is simply an extension of the same delusion. If you can't permit yourself recognise that simple belief does not automatically knowledge simply because you fear the imagined consequences of believing otherwise - then you are deluding yourself.