(March 20, 2019 at 6:36 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: You seem to be saying, “we can’t ever really know anything, so why even try?”
Absolutely not. Exactly the opposite. We can't be sure of many things, but we should still do our best.
(And I'm not saying that everybody has to study the same things I do.)
Let's take the standard definition of knowledge: justified true belief. We believe something when we hold it to be true. We can and should do our best to make sure those things we hold to be true are justified. But to be knowledge, they also have to be really truly true, and this is something that we may have to hold back from saying. History teaches that we may be justified, but still wrong.
Obviously there are different levels of provability. In a formal system like math, we can be sure that 2+2=4 if we agree on what the symbols mean. But empirical and metaphysical claims are in different categories.
Quote:Other than the existence of god, are there any other questions that you would place in this distinct, “big” category? Also, you seem to be implying that with enough wisdom and intelligence, one could arrive at the correct answer to the question, “does a god exist?” Is that correct?
The bigness of a question might depend on what's important to you. I guess things like moral issues can be big questions, pressing environmental concerns, physics questions. Some of these things are more decidable and some less.
It's possible that a lot of people have the correct answer to the question "Does a god exist?". Our job is to work out which of the available answers that is. If any.
Quote:Do you mean to say that highly intelligent individuals have disagreed on the existence of god? How does intelligence relate to the search for the answer to the question, “does a god exist?”
The existence of God is one question smart people have disagreed on. The other ones we read about in history should teach us humility.
An example I cite a lot: Galileo rejected the alchemical concept of "action at a distance" because he didn't like alchemy and had a mechanistic view of the universe. Newton took alchemy seriously and accepted "action at a distance," which we have renamed "gravity."
Surely it's better to listen to intelligent people more than stupid ones? I mean, stupid people may be saying true things, perhaps by chance, but doesn't intelligence count for something?
