(November 4, 2015 at 7:54 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: If it's nothing more than an illusion, how would you know?

This is a good question, do you recall my answers and explanation in the past through out the years? 

Quote:We act as if these things are objective - that's what a healthy mind does.  But the fact that we act "as if" these things were objective is not evidence in and of itself that they indeed are objective.  You mistake the appearance for the reality.

I actually always acknowledge this. There must be something more to make us know. Naturalism cannot account for that knowledge. Only Theism can.

(November 4, 2015 at 8:00 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Naturalism cannot account for that knowledge. Only Theism can.

Theism accounts for nothing more than wishful thinking; faith.

(November 4, 2015 at 8:00 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:

(November 4, 2015 at 7:54 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: If it's nothing more than an illusion, how would you know?

This is a good question, do you recall my answers and explanation in the past through out the years? 

Um, by perception of the light of praise? Hell, beyond the mountain of non sequiturs, I can't half understand you anymore.

(November 4, 2015 at 8:05 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:  Hell, beyond the mountain of non sequiturs, I can't half understand you anymore.

Then there is no point of me explaining it again is there? Of course there is always simplified summary and a detailed explanation. But here goes nothing. If your essence is derived from God's essence, and you point to his praise, and your praise is derived from his praise, and all praise in creation, through a connection to God, a living light, a living knowledge of him, that your witnessing of praise being objective and real in your soul, is derived from God witnessing his own absolute praise, his divine unity, his absolute greatness, etc, then it's very easily explainable. Just as God knows he is absolutely Praiseworthy, that knowledge in a lesser finite limited degree exists in creation, derived from his own knowledge of himself. Seeing the divine connection of praise to the absolute source of all greatness, is itself also possible by God's very knowledge of himself. He is the outward and inward, the manifest and the hidden, the explicit and implicit. If your treasure in your soul and what you ought value descended from a higher reality, than that being the property of it can be witnessed, in the same way God witnesses all praise in his unity and witnesses himself as absolute source of all praise, the absolute life by which all life exists.

(November 4, 2015 at 8:16 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Then there is no point of me explaining it again is there? Of course there is always simplified summary and a detailed explanation. But here goes nothing. If your essence is derived from God's essence, and you point to his praise, and your praise is derived from his praise, and all praise in creation, through a connection to God, a living light, a living knowledge of him, that your witnessing of praise being objective and real in your soul, is derived from God witnessing his own absolute praise, his divine unity, his absolute greatness, etc, then it's very easily explainable. Just as God knows he is absolutely Praiseworthy, that knowledge in a lesser finite limited degree exists in creation, derived from his own knowledge of himself. Seeing the divine connection of praise to the absolute source of all greatness, is itself also possible by God's very knowledge of himself. He is the outward and inward, the manifest and the hidden, the explicit and implicit. If your treasure in your soul and what you ought value descended from a higher reality, than that being the property of it can be witnessed, in the same way God witnesses all praise in his unity and witnesses himself as absolute source of all praise, the absolute life by which all life exists.

Yeah, I think you're just throwing God in there arbitrarily.  If the light you see in the distance is unreal, you'll still follow it all the same.   Remember the Magi in the bible followed a star as well.  Parsimony suggests that the fewer entities we multiply, the closer to the truth we will be.  You've multiplied entities unnecessarily in my view.

"I have no need of that hypothesis." ~ Laplace

Why do you reject naturalism?

In the same way God is not deluded or unsure about himself being praiseworthy and of absolute value, we can witness that we are certain that we have objective value objective praise.  The question of whether we do witness or not, is different then how would you know? How would you know has been explained. If you do know or not know, is silly to argue over. I think all humans very well know objective praise and value exist. The same is true of free-will and perpetual identity. I'm not going to get into a yes we know no we don't argument.

You asked "how would you know?". That has been answered.

(November 4, 2015 at 8:53 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: In the same way God is not deluded or unsure about himself being praiseworthy and of absolute value, we can witness that we are certain that we have objective value objective praise.  The question of whether we do witness or not, is different then how would you know? How would you know has been explained. If you do know or not know, is silly to argue over. I think all humans very well know objective praise and value exist. The same is true of free-will and perpetual identity. I'm not going to get into a yes we know no we don't argument.

You asked "how would you know?". That has been answered.

Fair enough. I wasn't looking for an argument, just an explanation.

(November 4, 2015 at 6:40 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:

(November 3, 2015 at 9:52 pm)Beccs Wrote: BTW: It can't be absolute, or the truth, if it can be disproved.

Yet I heard many times from different Atheists here that God must be falsifiable as opposed to being impossible to disprove to be the truth.

God may exist even if he isn't falsifiable but he can't affect us in any way because he's not within the realms of science and nature. If he is in the realms of science and nature then that means he can be tested and his hypothesis can be falsified. 

Point is God can't be disproved or falsfied. If he was falsified then indeed he can't exist because he has been disproven...

Whether he is falsified and whether he is falsifiable is different. Falsified= untrue. Falsifiable= testable by science.

(November 4, 2015 at 8:16 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:

(November 4, 2015 at 8:05 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:  Hell, beyond the mountain of non sequiturs, I can't half understand you anymore.

Then there is no point of me explaining it again is there? Of course there is always simplified summary and a detailed explanation. But here goes nothing. If your essence is derived from God's essence, and you point to his praise, and your praise is derived from his praise, and all praise in creation, through a connection to God, a living light, a living knowledge of him, that your witnessing of praise being objective and real in your soul, is derived from God witnessing his own absolute praise, his divine unity, his absolute greatness, etc, then it's very easily explainable. Just as God knows he is absolutely Praiseworthy, that knowledge in a lesser finite limited degree exists in creation, derived from his own knowledge of himself. Seeing the divine connection of praise to the absolute source of all greatness, is itself also possible by God's very knowledge of himself. He is the outward and inward, the manifest and the hidden, the explicit and implicit. If your treasure in your soul and what you ought value descended from a higher reality, than that being the property of it can be witnessed, in the same way God witnesses all praise in his unity and witnesses himself as absolute source of all praise, the absolute life by which all life exists.

That's more shit than the law allows.

(November 4, 2015 at 8:16 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Naturalism cannot account for that knowledge. Only Theism can.

(November 4, 2015 at 8:16 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Then there is no point of me explaining it again is there? Of course there is always simplified summary and a detailed explanation. But here goes nothing. If your essence is derived from God's essence, and you point to his praise, and your praise is derived from his praise, and all praise in creation, through a connection to God, a living light, a living knowledge of him, that your witnessing of praise being objective and real in your soul, is derived from God witnessing his own absolute praise, his divine unity, his absolute greatness, etc, then it's very easily explainable. Just as God knows he is absolutely Praiseworthy, that knowledge in a lesser finite limited degree exists in creation, derived from his own knowledge of himself. Seeing the divine connection of praise to the absolute source of all greatness, is itself also possible by God's very knowledge of himself. He is the outward and inward, the manifest and the hidden, the explicit and implicit. If your treasure in your soul and what you ought value descended from a higher reality, than that being the property of it can be witnessed, in the same way God witnesses all praise in his unity and witnesses himself as absolute source of all praise, the absolute life by which all life exists.

I think I detect an ontological argument in there... It sounds to me like you're saying that one can possess certain knowledge about the world because 1. God is not a malicious deciever and 2. God imparts certain knowledge, such as the knowledge that premises 1 and 2 are true. Do you not see anything viciously circular in that reasoning? Why not just grant that assured knowledge is ascertainable regardless if God exists since any effort to establish either of the two must necessarily defer to that presumption anyway? Furthermore, if God is not a deceiver and certainty about some things can be attained due to his illumination, why the preponderance of error on our part, not only about the world, but this very God many desperately wish to appease in an abundance of mutually exclusive contexts?

You want to say that knowledge or value cannot exist unless God exists. Why not? What makes them conditioned on God in such a way that the skepticism you initially maintained dissolves even though the affirmation of God's existence is far less evident than the possibility of self-knowledge or self-value (which is the soil from whence you can begin to build upon knowledge qua knowledge and value qua value as they relate to the world at large)?