Christian trigger words

[LadyForCamus]

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Thank you for a thoughtful response! And, now you'll hate me because I'm going to be pedantic about the definitions of knowledge, lol.  I'm not trying to be difficult; I just want to make sure we're on the same page before we move further on in the conversation.  I don't want us talking past each other. From MW:


So, knowledge is, 1.  the acquisition of facts about a thing, or said another way in definition 2., an awareness of facts about a thing. Would you agree with my summarization?  If so, then knowledge of a subject requires the subject itself to be a thing that exists.  As you said further down regarding your examples, we know the sky is blue, that trees are strong, and that the sun will rise tomorrow because these are material subjects that can be demonstrated. We can acquire facts about them, and these facts can be subsequently demonstrated. Facts are descriptive. They inform us of the reality of a thing. If a fact cannot be demonstrated, what qualifies it as a fact? We may intuitively understand these objects as real through our first-hand experience, but they can also be independently verified via the scientific method. Put another way, if I was the only one who ever saw trees, I may begin to doubt my first hand experience that informs me that trees exist. Intuition is functional short-hand, but it’s not without its flaws.


I disagree here.  Facts, in and of themselves, are evidence.  And, knowledge is a collection of facts that inform us of a thing.  It's implicit in the definition, even if the word "evidence" is not explicitly stated.  If there are no demonstrable facts about a thing, then there is no evidence for that thing.  If there is no evidence, why believe it exists at all?


I agree here.  I would need someone to demonstrate some facts that describe a spiritual world before I could reasonably believe in one.

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Of course I don't hate you and you're welcome. Now on to the pendantics.
If I thought it needed a summary I would probably disagree with your summary. If you were to say knowledge is the acquisition of facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education I would agree with that.

Yes, I can agree that is a satisfactory summarization of the definition of "knowledge".

I'll bullet these for ease:
1) facts, information and skills are descriptors that enable actors - I agree with you on that.
2) A fact does need to be demonstrable because it needs to be proven or used as evidence
3) You disagreed with my second statement because we had not yet agreed on a definition. As I stated in 2 if you're only focusing on facts that inform knowledge then I can see where you would disagree.

I'm still with you here. No objections from my end!

4) Information can be evidenced too, it just has a much lower standard than facts.

I'm nit picking again. The words "fact", and "information" are synonyms.  I'm not sure it's useful to discuss them as if there is enough of a difference between the two to matter.

You and I stand on opposite street corners, and between us is the typical doomsday gin holding, homeless looking loon.

I like this story already!

 You look and say what a good actor, and I look and say what a crazy lunatic. Why is that? You know he's just an actor playing a role for a hidden camera TV show and I don't. You have more information from your perspective than I do, so you understand what you see a lot better, even though we see the same thing.

Correct. I am in possession of a number of facts about the scenario that you are not, therefore my understanding of the scenario is more closely in line with reality.

I act on faith based on observation only and avoid the character and you act on evidence that's unknown to me.

Yes.

Even though I was wrong, it still fortifies the belief that I should avoid doomsday lunatics on street corners and reinforces/informs that belief, even though it is a false premise.  Having the facts in that situation might actually make me more inclined to question every lune on a street corner to see if I'm on a TV show.

Sure, so I think it depends on what your goal is in any given scenario.  If your goal is for your beliefs to be as closely aligned with the truth as possible, then you're going to want to have those facts about this guy on the street, regardless of which direction the conclusion points you in.  If your goal is simply to continue to hold a belief that you already have, then those facts probably aren't that important to you.