Logically speaking: God is knowable

Iano,Positions 1 & 7 have equal veracity, ie. Zero.Neither is supported by data that can be examined, & as such, are as bad as each other.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

gasby, They don't, which is why 1 & 7 are as bad as each other.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Ohnai,That is exactly my position summed up better than I could have myself!Mark

Iano, What's that got to do with anything? I could make an internally consistent argument stating that fairies exist at the bottom of my garden, which by definition would be logical. Or for that matter, that god doesn't exist. Or that unicorns, kraken, leprechauns, etc. ad infinitum do/don't exist. You can make a logical, evidence free argument for the existence of Tolkien's Dwarfs (or Dwarves), & so on.Being "logical", which simply means "consistent", in & of itself is meaningless.The point is that from an evidential point of view both 1 & 7 are both evidentially vacuous. That the arguments made for both are internally consistent is rendered pointless without evidence.MarkEdited by mark24, : No reason given.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Iano, For the third time, a one has no evidence in order to know, & so is equal to a seven in this regard.It matters not a jot that loads of evidence could in principle be discovered in support of god, the fact is that there is NONE. A 1 is therefore as bad as a 7 because both require 100% belief sans evidence - This is the point.Potential evidence is a red-herring.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Iano, Oh for christ's sake...NEITHER PROPOSITION HAS ANY EVIDENCE!!! Position 1 & 7 have equal veracity because of this. That one proposition can potentially have evidence is irrelevant to the fact that neither do.What part of that don't you understand?Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Iano, This is the statement of a reliosist, who thinks it is possible to know things without empirical evidence. Is this a farcical attempt to allow intuition, or dreams in as evidence? Because if it is, you have to accept that Allah exists, so does Vishnu, Shiva & all the other spirits & gods that mankind has dreamt up. All of which contradict your religion. The "evidence" is in!Clearly it is all delusional, a triumph of wishful thinking over reason, literally. Funny how Yahweh never visits muslims & Allah never visits Christians.Tell me, would you accept the following evidence? A murder occurs in your neighbourhood, a self-professed spiritualist goes to the police & tells them your best friend did it, Yahweh came to her in a dream & told her that he as guilty. He has no alibi, & there is no other evidence either way. He is then convicted & executed on the strength of this evidence.It's a rhetorical question, really, designed to expose the double-standard of religous acceptance of what constitutes evidence in support of, & in contradiction of any given religion.MarkEdited by mark24, : No reason given.Edited by mark24, : No reason given.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Straggler,Exactly, if the religious accept non-empirical evidence, then they are forced to admit that there is evidence of other gods.Doh!Of course, consistency never was a strong suit, other gods are held to a higher evidential standard, naturally.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Iano,You have failed to engage in any way in your own thread.You have failed to demonstrate that non-empirical evidence in any way is a force for increasing the veracity of a proposition. You ignored the point that allowing non-empirical "evidence" as being admissible, would actually admit evidence that contradicts your own religion far more than just sticking to empirical evidence. Something I don't think you really thought through. But there you have it, we now have bona fida evidence that Yahweh is a false god, according to Iano's standards. Hindu gods "appear" to Hindu's, disproving christianity once and for all.In short, you have not shown that position 1 is better evidentially supported than position 7. The only way of reliably inferring anything is via empirical evidence. Anything else is literally wishful thinking.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Iano, Why? If you can't show that non-empiricism affects the veracity of a proposition, then you have no business using it. This is your contradiction, not mine. This is contradictory & superbly shows up the fallacy in your reasoning.If a Hindu "knows" his pantheon exists, & you "know" your christian god exists, then non-empirical methodology must be rejected as it allows for mutually exclusive propositions to co-exist.There are three possibilities, The Hindu pantheon exists, the Christian religion is reality, or neither are true. Since the first two are mutually exclusive & cannot coexist, then either the Hindu or you, or both of you are wrong. Since there is no way of increasing the veracity of either proposition without empirical evidence, non-empiricism as a means of arriving at the truth must be rejected.How can I tell whether you or the Hindu or both of you are wrong?MarkEdited by mark24, : No reason given.Edited by mark24, : No reason given.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Iano, But a bird flying past your window presents data that was captured by one of your senses & is therefore empirical. Why are you using an empirical example to counter empiricism?The point is that 1/ our senses can be tricked, & 2/ our brains can be tricked into thinking that one of our senses was triggered. For trivial things like "hey, a bird flew past my window" no-one wants extra evidence because the statement is non-controversial. It might of, it might not of, so what?But for more sensational claims a higher standard is required, & that is evidence that can be examined by everyone. This rules out the possibility that self-delusion or an over active subconcious is the culprit.At the end of the day, propositions are supported by empirical, testable evidence because we want to reliably get at the truth. The only way to attain reliability is to reduce the tentativity of a hypothesis, & the only way of doing that is to have evidence that can be examined.We cannot get at the truth of Yahweh's existence because you had a fulfilling dream, we have no way of knowing whether it was a dream, or a revelation. YOU have no way of knowing, & if you can't tell, then it is not evidential in nature. This phenomena is thrown into sharp relief when other religions make similar claims. There is no way of telling which mutually exclusive non-empirical claims are true or false. Ergo, non-empirical claims cannot be considered evidence because they cannot reduce the tentativity of a hypothesis & improve its veracity.Non-empirical "evidence" is non-evidence.MarkEdited by mark24, : No reason given.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't