RE: If there was a loving God, would you accept him?
April 30, 2014 at 3:30 pm
(This post was last modified: April 30, 2014 at 3:43 pm by Coffee Jesus.)
(April 29, 2014 at 3:28 pm)ns1452 Wrote: How can you account for the existence of beauty and courage on only an empirical epistemology.
Empiricism presupposes that we are having mental experiences, as our sensory perceptions are just that. Beauty and courage are also aspects of mental experience. Unlike beauty and courage, God is supposed to be an objective thing that exists beyond your mind.
(April 29, 2014 at 3:28 pm)ns1452 Wrote: 2) What makes empirical rationalism the sole and first criteria for understanding the world?
When we converse through language, we must be able to verify that we're talking about the same thing. We do this verification empirically. For example, I can ask you to identify "red objects", "boats", or "cars" to verify that you have the same understanding of these words as I. If we can't have a common understanding of "God", then it doesn't have meaning.
Empiricism is the default criteria because I know that you exist through empirical observation. If I deny empiricism, then I deny the existence of the person that I'm having a conversation with.
If you have some other set of criteria, show that the functionality of those criteria follows from the same assumptions that grant me your existence.
