(March 23, 2019 at 8:00 pm)Belaqua Wrote:(March 23, 2019 at 7:44 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote: You miss the point, in order for revelation to be considered a reliable source of information we would need to know that it is real and how it works. You might as well say we can reach reliable conclusions through magic.
You miss my point.
Suppose, in this thought experiment, there is revelation. How would we confirm that it is reliable?
The point I am making is that people will only accept as reliable a very specific kind of confirmation -- science-type confirmation.
I am not arguing for the truth of revelation. This is a thought experiment about confirming information gained in non-scientific ways.
We confirm its reliability by the results it produces, if revelation could produce accurate and consistent results the you could determine it's reliability. The thought experiment is stupid because I could say that magic produces reliable results, "magic allows me to pick the winning lotto numbers every week, therefore magic is a reliable method for picking lotto numbers.", now where did that get us.