Is Theism arrogant?

mikehagar, Well... first of all, all sorts of critical social functions (most notably language) deepend on the assumption of homogenaity. So, this type of thing goes on all the time.Second of all, what makes "thinking" special and inaccessible to others? I could easily say that I know you, mikehagar, see the sky as blue (a statement about your experience, not a statement about any property of the sky or light). You never told me so, but I am certain of it.In my eyes, prophex's claim is no different. RAZD often talks about the ability to trigger supernatural experiences with some type of electric-stimulating helmet. The point being that all people can have experiences that are god-like. It's something we can empirically investigate about being human and having human brains.The final piece to the puzzle: a bit of philosophy of language. Prophex said, "Everyone feels the presence of God." What does this sentence "mean" ? There are many ways to define meaning, but I (as a cognitive linguist) find the most useful way of deriving meaning is to translate from the belief system of the speaker to the belief system of the listener. In other words, even though prophex phrases things using language talking about God (because prophex believes in God), to someone who may not believe in God, the underlying useful meaning can be found by translating the speech into a belief system without God. And for prophex's statement, it would translate to "Everyone is capable of experiencing supernatural-like feelings."Prophex was basically just saying that we all have the capability to have such experiences. It's something that's certainly investigable via self-report protocols, a common technique in psychology and cognitive science. So... I don't see how it's any more arrogant than claiming all people get hungry.Ben

mikehagar,Thanks for the reply. Hope this post can add some value. All language is necessarily interpretive. There is no such thing as context-free meaning in natural language. There is no "actually said."Think of it like translating across languages. If you translated "He brought the house down" from English to Japanese using "literal" meaning, you'd get nonsense. If you recognized the cultural components of the statement, you'd be able to translate the statement into a Japanese idiom that fit within Japanese cultural elements.The exact same thing needs to be done here, to extract useful meaning out of the statement. The statement is embedded in prophex's own belief systems. To understand what really lies at the base of his statement, you have to translate it into your own belief system. A choice NOT to do such a translation is a choice to read prophex in a specific way. It's no more right or wrong than the style of reading I'm proposing. I am suggesting that it's a less useful (i.e. informative) way of interpreting his words though. Yes, but a single case does not make an absolute. Your argument is about all thinking being inaccessible. You could prune your argument down and make it specific to prophex's statement. But I showed (given the most useful interpretation of prophex's statement) that it CAN be known for all people without asking them. And so you're going to make me qualify what everyone would normally qualify for themselves. Yes, you cannot know such things "for certain." Just like you can't know that people have 2 arms or 2 legs. There are exceptions.The point was, you can know as a general rule for all people. Which is exactly the type of statement that prophex was making. Exceptional circumstances are always possible.But, But, your point is good anyway; colorblindness is really not rare. So, I'll just say that I can know that when you touch something of a high temperature with your lips, you don't like it.

Trixie, I'm saying that what prophex "actually meant" doesn't really matter, because whether there is a God or not is not a shareable fact. What prophex "actually meant" has to do with God, blah blah. For a non-believer to interpret prophex's remark without abstracting prophex's belief in God is to extract meaning from his statement at a superficial level. Whenever prophex opens his mouth about "God", if we judge his statements at such a superficial level, he'll always be saying something that non-belivers find to be uninteresting, incorrect, or inapplicable. Only by translating his words to have meaning in a world without God can a non-believer attempt to get any value out of such statements.What prophex meant was quite clear. No clarification necessary. It's arrogant only if you take it as a statement about a relationship between God and people. But to do so is to judge at a really superficial level. I find making the translation, you can extract more meaningful statements from people who talk about God.I'd choose to understand prophex at this more abstracted level. At the superficial level, he's arrogant, wrong, dumb. At the abstracted level, he's thinking about good stuff.To summarize... I know what prophex was saying in multiple interpretations. mikehagar chose an interpretation that allowed him to be offended. That wasn't necessary; that was mikehagar's choice. I chose an interepetation where I think prophex makes a true generalized statement. And I don't believe in any God. And the multiple interpretations is not due to prophex being ambiguous. His statement was most certainly not ambiguous. It's because "English language" is an abstraction, a myth. Languages are dependent on homogenaeity. When the homogenaity fails, we don't have standard ways to construct meaning.If I'm just repeating myself (rather than clarifying, which I hope I'm doing), then please object.Ben

I tried to clarify this in my response to Trixie. I don't think what prophex said was ambiguous in any way. I think we both agree on the tone and intended meaning of the words. I'm not making claims about prophex's intention or what these words mean to him. I'm making claims about what these words mean to mikehagar and Ben. I'm talking about interpretation issues, the utility of interpretation.I'm pointing out that your interpretation is not more right or wrong than my interpretation. I'm trying to point out that my interpretation is more useful.Prophex may have been arrogant, but it is not because he's claiming to know something about your thought. Cognitive scientists do that all the time. In fact, regular people make assumptions that they know the minds of others all the time. It's normal. I'd call prophex arrogant because I doubt he has the experience or knowledge to make such broad statements. But the statement itself is not an arrogant one; I see such statements from cognitive scientists and psychologists all the time. Weird. Because in Message 6, you said which I took to be making a general claim. I guess you were trying to summarize by giving your thoughts in another form, and so made it a general statement? Anyway, that's why I was confused; I'll talk more specifically now. It's a nice summary. Here's a summary of my rebuttal:"All people 'feel' the presence of God" is a useless statement to a non-believer. To a non-believer, understanding this as "All people have internal feelings that can be interpreted as supernatural feelings" is another, more useful interpretation. This meaning can be checked through correlation of self-reports and understanding of neurological data. Jumping from knowledge of people's minds and brains in general to knowledge of your state of mind is not really arrogant; it happens every day. I assume neurological homogenaity here every day; we all do.Maybe reading my reply to Trixie (Message 17) might help clarify my views on language and understanding. But maybe not.Thanks again for the reply.Ben