RE: Q: do you, Christian, claim that God exists, rather than you believe that he exists?
February 26, 2014 at 4:45 am
(This post was last modified: February 26, 2014 at 4:48 am by Whateverist.)
(February 26, 2014 at 3:51 am)fr0d0 Wrote: You would believe it understanding the same evidence. The only difference is understanding.
If it has anything to do with the bible I'm quite sure I would not. I've never found a compelling reason to think that book had anything to do with God even when I was young enough to still believe.
You have to understand that I'm not looking to believe in God and have no desire to. I much prefer to allow what I believe to follow passively from what I think true. That is far from Scientism. Much of first person knowledge resists the third person requirement of repeatability and falsifiability, but that doesn't mean I reject all first person knowledge. Far from it. I simply don't count an apprehension of God among the artifacts of my first person knowledge. Who are you to rule on the validity of my first person knowledge?
(February 26, 2014 at 3:51 am)fr0d0 Wrote: It's the other way around... We're defending our understanding against your understanding. I'm not talking about some special gift unobtainable to all but a special few. We're talking about something clear and ordinary, simple enough for a child to understand.
No doubt. But a child is moldible and a sponge for information. My sponge is sopping wet with all I've absorbed in 61 years of experiencing the world. My world has already taken on a shape. Anything new will have to be reconciled with what has come before. I have no god shaped holes to fill.
(February 26, 2014 at 3:51 am)fr0d0 Wrote:(February 25, 2014 at 9:21 pm)Rampant.A.I. Wrote: the term "truth" does not apply to strongly held beliefs if they're not rational beliefs
I agree.
You don't appear to be following the discussion. Scientism is an illogical stance, whereas my beliefs are entirely rational.
You assume to know what I believe, and judge it without knowledge. I pay you no such disrespect.
I agree that scientism is an unnatural perspective as it gives too little weight to first person knowledge. But science itself is a wonderful tool for understanding the world in a third person manner. I realize this remark was not addressed to me, but I do not assume to know what you believe on the basis of your first person experience, and neither do I judge it on the basis of third person (science based) criteria. But it seems as if it is you who wish to rule on what is real on the basis of first person experience. I don't object to your doing so for yourself but I reject your authority to do so for others.
