(August 10, 2023 at 5:30 pm)Belacqua Wrote: I think it's fascinating that the rule of empirical objectivity has exceptions. Obviously, if someone here said, "I am sure that God is all around me because it is self-evident to my experience as a human," none of the regular posters here would take that as the least bit persuasive as evidence. But "I am sure I am not the same gender I was assigned at birth because it is self-evident to my experience as a human" is something we now accept without question.
Sigh. Some things can be proven by feelings, like hunger, hate, or even sex, but others obviously can not. You obviously would not trust a doctor who would tell you that you need an emergency operation because he feels that you have a tumor on your brain after you complained that you have a headache.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
