I find it very annoying when theists play fast and loose with the definition of the word "knowledge."

A common claim around AF is that our lack of belief in God is the result of some spiritual knowledge gap; that the information about God is right in front of the atheist's face but he chooses not to see it; that he is missing important information due to a narrow, empiricist world view.

I've seen it posed a couple different ways, such as with flowery language like: "you will know the divine truth only when you open your heart to the light that is all things." crapola, to more formally structured arguments involving philosopher name dropping, and: "that depends on what the meaning of the word "is," is." type of thing.

What is knowledge that is not testable, not measurable against anything, not reproducible, not able to be objectively confirmed, and not demonstratable to others? It is simply NOT knowledge. How can theists justify using that word when speaking of metaphysical or spiritual subject matter?

I might have a bit more respect for theism if theists would just call a spade, a spade. Theist says to me: I have knowledge that God exists. I know he exists because: I have experienced him, personally. He has shown himself to me, personally. His existence is self-evident to ME. How can the theist think he has obtained actual knowledge regarding God's existence if the only way he can pass it on is to just TELL people, "it's true, because I have experienced it, and I have decided that it is true, and I am telling you that it is." How can he regard his believe as anything but individual testimonial?

If a paranoid schizophrenic has delusions and auditory hallucinations of the devil speaking to him, would any reasonable person believe he has knowledge about the nature of Satan? Of course not. The schizophrenic's experience is real, and certainly powerful to him, but it is a subjective experience regardless.

I suspect theists paint god-belief as an intellectual subject rather than an experiential one because they think this will make it an easier pill for non-believers to swallow. It is as if they realize how irrational naked faith actually is, so they try to beef it up with philosophical rhetoric; try to make it appear grounded in reality when it's not. Maybe this makes it an easier pill for THEM to swallow.

Theists: Please remember to use the word "knowledge" only where it reasonably applies.

Here endeth my rant. Thanks for listening, and hopefully I didn't break any forum rules this time, and YES, I read them!

There's no such thing as "scientific" knowledge and "spiritual" knowledge. There is only knowledge. If you cannot support your claim, it isn't a special category of "knowledge"; it is an unsupported claim.

In science, if you liken a theory or argument to a chain, to fuck up that theory, you only need to break a single link.

In religion it seems, breaking every link is not convincing to some/most/all believers. 'Predicting' how old the universe is and how it formed would be a make or break thing, all religions get it wrong and yet belief persists. We have Christian scripture promising belief is all it takes to move mountains, heal the sick, and to neutralize serpent venom and poison. So where are all these moved mountains hiding ?

You get religious apologist making all manner of logical fallacies in defending their faiths to the extent it is embarrassing and headache inducing to read their explanations. And belief persists.

As soon as anyone talks about "spiritual" things, in a non-metaphorical way, I literally have no idea what they are talking about. I've asked many times, but I've never received anything that sounds like a sensible answer to me.

Words like evidence, proofs, knowledge, signs, existed way before scientific method.

Knowledge is simply warranted justified belief. Sure knowledge is higher then that.

Atheists want to define words to suit their Agenda. They define "faith" in a way that makes it unreasonable to have.

You asserted a lot.  A child perhaps hasn't proven to itself rationally that it has value, perpetual identity, worth, praise, etc, but it can believe in these things and be justified in doing so.  They can know a moral truth without a long justification of it and express it even the need occurs without requiring to prove it in a long philosophical argument or without relying on the scientific method to prove it.

(January 3, 2016 at 12:18 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Words like evidence, proofs, knowledge, signs, existed way before scientific method.

Knowledge is simply warranted justified belief. Sure knowledge is higher then that.

Atheists want to define words to suit their Agenda. They define "faith" in a way that makes it unreasonable to have.

You asserted a lot.  A child perhaps hasn't proven to itself rationally that it has value, perpetual identity, worth, praise, etc, but it can believe in these things and be justified in doing so.  They can know a moral truth without a long justification of it and express it even the need occurs without requiring to prove it in a long philosophical argument or without relying on the scientific method to prove it.

I've never seen the Abrahamic god -- or any other, for that matter -- properly justified.

Theists love to hear themselves talk.  Dismiss it for what it is.  Pious blather.

(January 3, 2016 at 12:18 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Words like evidence, proofs, knowledge, signs, existed way before scientific method.

Knowledge is simply warranted justified belief. Sure knowledge is higher then that.

.....indeed, and if the sun rising in the east is "warranted, justified belief"...then demons are something else entirely.

Quote:Atheists want to define words to suit their Agenda. They define "faith" in a way that makes it unreasonable to have.

Just because your faith is unreasonable, doesn't mean that it's unreasonable to have faith.

(January 3, 2016 at 12:18 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: A child perhaps hasn't proven to itself rationally that it has value, perpetual identity, worth, praise, etc, but it can believe in these things and be justified in doing so.

A child can be justified in believing in these things without it rising to the level of knowledge, nor with it being true. I find it odd that you use the example of a child, as children are particularly susceptible to mistaking insufficient justification for belief with knowledge.

(January 3, 2016 at 7:52 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(January 3, 2016 at 12:18 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: A child perhaps hasn't proven to itself rationally that it has value, perpetual identity, worth, praise, etc, but it can believe in these things and be justified in doing so.

A child can be justified in believing in these things without it rising to the level of knowledge, nor with it being true.   I find it odd that you use the example of a child, as children are particularly susceptible to mistaking insufficient justification for belief with knowledge.

As we grow older, we ought to try justify why we believe in these things.  We ought to seek deeper explanations of how we know these things to be true. I am simply don't believe we ought to teach children they have no way of knowing they have value or worth for example.  Or that they have no way of knowing whether or not nothing they do is to praiseworthy.

That said, majority of humans probably through out time never really thought deeply about these issues. I don't believe that they didn't necessarily have knowledge of it.

Nor do I believe you can only be justified in belief in the nature of these things through robustly investigating all explanations about them in the world.