I know the chair will hold me because the last time I sat on it it held me. I also know about about chair construction and have a general idea about what type of chair might not hold me i.e. when I look at my children's small chairs that have spindly wooden legs I think they probably would not hold me.
In the case of my car, yes, something changed, because yesterday it started fine for me, and I know when it doesn't start that something has malfunctioned, and the history of my vehicle would suggest that something was wrong with the battery. I would probably pray over it and kill a goat to make it work and if that didn't work I would throw runes to find a good mechanic.
Sometimes I think that knowledge is not possible, but that doesn't seem like a rational statement to make except in the case of the nebulous idea of a very loosely defined deity. I've participated in some posts a long while back that seem to suggest that we should be agnostic about everything, but we certainly don't live our lives like that. Even in the case of god, I live my life like it is an impossibility, but that is where the term intellectually honest comes in. When I think about it, I can't say I really know there is not ontologically extant being that could be refered to as god. Why bother though?
Stop where the argument starts, tell them to define god and get back to you with a testable definition, then a discussion can occur.
In the case of my car, yes, something changed, because yesterday it started fine for me, and I know when it doesn't start that something has malfunctioned, and the history of my vehicle would suggest that something was wrong with the battery. I would probably pray over it and kill a goat to make it work and if that didn't work I would throw runes to find a good mechanic.
Sometimes I think that knowledge is not possible, but that doesn't seem like a rational statement to make except in the case of the nebulous idea of a very loosely defined deity. I've participated in some posts a long while back that seem to suggest that we should be agnostic about everything, but we certainly don't live our lives like that. Even in the case of god, I live my life like it is an impossibility, but that is where the term intellectually honest comes in. When I think about it, I can't say I really know there is not ontologically extant being that could be refered to as god. Why bother though?
Stop where the argument starts, tell them to define god and get back to you with a testable definition, then a discussion can occur.
