How do we know?

There is in fact an asymmetry here. Theists accept the same methods of knowing as atheists do, but add in other "ways" which they claim to be adequate and in some cases even superior to the methods that are generally accepted.So it is up to theists to show that their supposed means of knowing are in fact as good as they claim. However religion has failed badly in the understanding of the natural universe. Even in the area of morality - where science does not tread and many hold to be the proper domain of religion - the exclusively religious commandments show no consistency or real agreement. If the methods of theism are that unreliable then the theist cannot claim that they produce knowledge.Atheists in general do not claim that science can discover everything.
What they do reject is claims of personal revelation. But theists are quite happy to reject claims of personal revelation that do not fit into their religion. Even here the theist can offer no objectively justifiable standard.This message has been edited by PaulK, 11-21-2004 05:16 AM

What I mean is purely religious moral standards. The First Commandment is a good one since every non-Abrahamic religion unquestionably violates it and sees nothing wrong in doing so.As for you other questions they are irrelevant. Why would disagreements between atheists indicate that religious assertions on moral matters were reliably true ?

I didn't say anything about science. It is just that if you want to claim knowledge then you have to show that your justification for belief is good enough. If it isn't - and I submit that the disagreement between religions without any means of resoving those disagreements is prima facie evidence that it is not - then I don't see that you have any grounds to claim that you have genuine knowledge. YOur beleif in a "spiritual war" doesn't change that - because even if that could be shown true (and it falls in the same category as the rest) there is no way that you can show that your beliefs are not disinformation generated by your supposed " spritual war"I haven't even claimed that science is the only means of gaining knowledge. It is, however, the most reliable means of gaining knowledge about our physical universe. And it has a proven track record.And are you prepared to admit that "personal revelations" that contradict your religious beliefs mght be valid ?

I understand perfectly that what you are saying is not related to the topic of this thread.I also note that your argument is essentially for the Straussian view that religion is valuable as a means of social control regardless of whether it is true or not.

Instead of trying to suggest that he level of reliability we use is purely arbitarry perhaps you could try producing evidence that religious methods of knowing are reliable. Surely that is the central issue ?And there is abolsutely no point in even trying to state what evidence would convince me that God existed without a definition of God.And there is no point in speculating avour other "aspects of reality" unless you can actually show that religion DOES give us reliable information about it.BTW I think you are definitely distorting what Islam is about. Like Christianity there are a lot of conflicting moral ideas even within Islam. And even if you are right we can presumably say that the God who inspired Moses and Joshua was evil based on the massacres of Numbers and Joshua. Are you willing to take that step or is divinely commanded genocide acceptable when YOUR religion says so ?

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.

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" ?

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.

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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.

You've still got it wrong. I'm not taking a definite position on whether there are or are not other valid ways of knowing. I'm allowing that there may be others - but any suich claim has to be justifiedAnd I really don't see how you can suggest that faith is a valid means of knowing. Surely faith )in this context) is simply strong belief without evidence ? That's not a method of knowing.And no you haven't presented an argument yet that faith is a vlaid means of knowing. Faith certainly is not the basis for pure logical beleif - nor really is it the basis for empiricism. Empiricism may require the acceptance of basic assumptions but that is NOT because faith is considered valid. In epistmeology such assumptions are a necessary evil - but still an evil.And you still seem confused by your own analogy. If you are jsut daying that sufficiently strong belief - whether the product of knowledge or not will produce the same actions then it is trivial and irrelevant. We know that fanatics will do all sorts of things for completely false beliefs - Heaven's Gate being an obvious example. Faith is not knowledge.The essentual difference between our positions is not trust. It is not a willigness to accept somebody else' word. It is not a requirement for direct verification of everything (yet another strawman). It is that you want to pretend that some of your beliefs are knowledge when they are not. And that is why we have all the strawmen and all the evasion. Because really when it comes down to it you knwo that you have no case.

How could other means of knowing be justified ? By showing that they are reliable - that will probably mean showing that they are reliable when they overlap with better verified means of knowing. Other aspects that are important are consistency and a valid way of resolving disputes - science does pretty well on these fronts. But religious "ways of knowing" have done very badly on both.What I am NOT arguing is that every single instance has to be verifiable by other means - and that is where your argument that no test is possible falls down.And yet another misrepresentation - I did not say that I was "open" to other "ways of knowing" - I said I was open to the POSSIBILITY that there were other "ways of knowing". I'm offering you the chance to make your case and nothing more.Now he case for the assumptions on which empricism is based have the following basis:
a) pragmatic necessity (we ae forced to make minimal assumptions)
b) strong cross-checking (so we DO have some evidence, and can only be fooled by systematic errors affecting mutiple observers and often more than one sense)i.e. to the extent that "faith" is involved it is NOT accepted as valid.And I see you once again trying to rule out evidence that faith does not work. There is nothing wrong with the faith of the Heavens Gate members AS faith. It was just drastically misplaced - but faith has no guard against that. Indeed the stronger the faith the more vulnerable it is to that error. You can't say that Willowtree did not have a strong faith in Gene Scott - and look how deluded and blind he was as a result.And yes I do feel justified in claiming victory. You've admitted that faith is unreliable. You've not shown ANY argument that it is sufficiently reliable to be classed as knowledge or any indication that you even intend to present such an argument. Instead we get excuses and evasions and misrepresentations. At this point in the discussion it is surely reasonable for me to conclude that you have no such argument. As I stated in my first post Message 6 to this thread "it is up to theists to show that their supposed means of knowing are in fact as good as they claim". And you have still not answered that point.So unless you are keeping something up your sleeve, then yes I have won.

Since you asked for it: Message 10

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And our proof must be shown scientifically in order for you to accept it. And this is not possible.

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Message 41

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You have decided to accept only certain things that can be scientifically proven as "true" facts because this has practical value.

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Message 44

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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.

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Enough ?

I understand what you are saying perfectly. It's still wrong.We don't simply beleive what anybody says. We do accept - as a shortcut - what genuinely qualified people say (and even there we do not always accept it fully). But that is because thay are passing on knowledge acquired by other means and we have adequate reason to trust them.For faith to be a mean of knowing it should be possible to gain knowledge directly by faith - rather than simply accepting knowledge acquired by other means. And this raises the question of where the supposed knowledge in religion comes from and whetehr there are genuine qualifications which can ve trusted to indicate posession of this knowledge.Leaving aside your silly claim about special relativity (I've studied it - I KNOW that it has no noticable effect at the level of ordinary experience), I've already dealt with the assumptions of empiricism. And it certainly does NOT involve ignoring other peoples perceptions as you claim (in fact they ARE a useful cross-check and are a very valuable part of empiricism). What YOU don't understand is that the reliance on assumptions - EVEN WITH CROSS-CHECKS is considered a WEAKNESS. It is something that is to be minimised. The real fact is the OPPOSITE of what you say - the basis of empiricism is a DENIAL that faith is a valid means of knowing.And then we return to the same old strawman. I've corrected you often enough on this point, so I have to assume that you are simply lying. I don't demand scientific validation of God - I ask for evidence that faith as such is a reliable means of knowing. That you continually evade this issue by misrepresentign my position simply shows that you know that you can't provide what I actually ask for.

No, I am NOT agreeing that knowledge is a matter of trust. In fact I point out that that trust needs to be justified, is only relied on at all for pragmatic reasons and even then is only a way of passing on knowledge ultimately acquired by other means (and is less reliable than acquiring the knowledge yourself by those means).And no it is not entirely subjective who we trust. Your wife is the only person who can truly know her feelings for you - THAT is objective fact. Stephen Hawking is widely recognised as an expert in the physics of Black Holes and THAT is an objective fact, too. Of course there are going to be borderline cases but in thise cases you should - by definition - place less reliance in any information obtained from them. But in the case of religion do I trust a minister, a rabbi, a guru or an imam ? THAT choice is purely subjective.Your example of Jesus is perfect - it is only a subjective opinion that gives you any reason to suppose that Jesus has any special knowledge to pass on - and even then you must trust reports written decades after the fact mostly by people who weren't there snd don't identify their sources and influenced by who-knows-what changes in belief that followed Jesus' death. Not exactly a good basis on which to claim knowledge.So can you give an example of faith actually producing knowledge rather than a justified faith being used in transmission of knowledge ? The example you give clearly is the latter sort.And claiming God as the source of your knowledge does no good. The Quran claims to come from God. But you reject that. YOu have NO way of knowing that God is the source, so you can't rely on that assumption to justify claims of knowledge.On empiricism you claimed that the relaince on assumptions validated your belief while ignoring the effort made to minimises those assumptions - a fact which negates your argument. If you understood that your argument was dishonest. Yet you call me "stubborn" for rep

Sadly the end of my previous message somehow was lost.Nevertheless we have established that there is no argument that faith is a valid way of knowing. In every example used there are relevant facts that are the true basis for confidence in the belief in question. Faith itself is hopelessly unreliable - something you are clearly well aware of.Let me leave you with one final refutation.Every espistemiology seeks to find grounds to justify belief, and the strength of belief is properly based on the grounds available to support that beleif. To say faith is a valid way of knowing is to state that strength of belief is self-validating. It is not an epistemology, it is a denial of epistemology.