Which of these applies to God?

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One of the symptoms of some delusions is that the deluded one is convinced he is not deluded.

ruveyn

Right, we both know that your experience of the Holy Spirit fails as a great evidence given how any two-bit cult will duplicate that kind of experience.

I would have to imagine that your own view would have to trump the logical arguments given that there are atheist philosophers of religion.

In any case though, 91, part of the problem with trying to use "God as a basic belief" is that your particular God is not believed by everyone. A monotheistic God is not believed by everyone, even being bizarre in some cultures. Even further, religious experience isn't just a special Christian thing, but a lot of religions make this into a big deal, and make similar claims about when their religious experiences will be found. All of this really suggests that religion is a matter of psychology and culture, as all of these facts undermine the particular nature of your experience and your use of that as valid. If you lived in a bubble, sure, you could go around saying that, but given that we all know Hindus exist in their own mystical religion, it is hard to say that your religious experience gives us more confidence in Christ than their religious experiences give us for the Hindu faith. (Even of further note: It is also relatively true that Hinduism, being pluralist and polytheist, is more tolerant of religious experiences by people of other religions than Christianity, which means that even if we take your experience as valid, Hinduism would be the more likely option on that ground alone. Note: We can get into various philosophical issues, BUT, the problem still emerges that even a mix and match religion could suffice)

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I think it is important to separate what I am saying in relation to objectivity. I am not arguing that my objective experience should act as proof for someone else. I am however stating that it is a verification of the truth of what I believe. I do not believe the Holy Spirit acts as an evangelization tool in that way. It is also not legitimate to state something along the lines of ‘I experienced the Holy Spirit; therefore you also should be convinced’. This is not really an argument from religious experience, which any crackpot can make. There are arguments that do go along those lines, but they, in my opinion, are not very convincing. Rather, I am making the claim that the person to whom God bears witness, though the Spirit, can know that Christianity is true.

A good example of what I am getting at is in the movie ‘Contact’. Where the Doctor played by Foster has an experience, in which she states ‘I never knew’. When she comes back she tries to relate this experience to others and they are skeptical of what she is saying, she can’t prove it. However, for her, she definitely had this experience. Despite all the evidence not really backing her up (it does in the end, but this is quite inconsequential to this discussion) she is quite warranted in her belief that what occurred is true. For her, this is a self-authenticating experience, even though she cannot prove it to others.

The question you seem to be asking is how does this affect the believer when they meet a Mormon or a Muslim who claims to have had a similar experience? Well to me it does not really do that much. Imagine again if Foster then met a person who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, does that mean she is required to believe that story also? Well no, not at all. It seems perfectly logically consistent for a person who had an objective experience to believe in its objectivity, regardless of other claims that are most likely not true. A person who has had witness from the Holy Spirit seems quite justified in continuing to believe in their own experience, regardless of a false claim; even if the other person honestly believes that their view is correct. As to your view that some conglomeration of beliefs would suffice, this just does not seem at all persuasive. My view might be considered authentic by a Hindu, but that does nothing in relation to telling me the truth of the Hindu point of view, that runs directly counter to my own witness of the Holy Spirit. You might be thinking that this view is irrelevant, that anyone could claim it and disappear away from all argument and never be reached by reason or common sense. Well that would not at all be justified, if someone actually demonstrates that an objective experience cannot be true, by disproving the source of the beliefs, then one would not be justified in believing it to be authentic.

So ow do you know that your experience is the authentic one, not the Muslim's or the Mormon's? If they can have an experience similar to yours, but it is a false experience despite seeming completely aithentic to them, than isn't it just as possible that your experience is false despite seeming completely authentic to you? Christians would argue that the Muslim's experience was actually from Satan and not the Holy Spirit, but that just takes us back to the question of how do you know that your experience is from the Holy Spirit and not from Satan, sinse you do believe that Satan is capable of creating such a deception?

91, not only are you falling straight into the easiest traps set for logical positivists by trying to deny the subjectivity of your experience (all your experience, not just that of the Holy Spirit), but you're failing at basic logical positivism as well, because you're validating your un-evidenced personal experience based on your personal epistemology. You can't have it both ways - and if you're really trying for some sort of objective Platonic realism in which you're simply experiencing the real-in-spacetime "essence of Spiritness," I'm afraid I don't buy it.

Many religionists play these "objective proof" games, and it's a rather silly and pointless endeavor, because it requires one to posit an objective reality stronger and more objective than even most scientists would cop to. A sharp, thinking person is very likely to be wary of a religionist who comes to them denying the subjectivity of human experience almost entirely; religion, after all, is very much about emotions, desires, inner searching, a need for belonging, authority, reassurance, ritual - very human, very deeply subjective things. Once one has has reached the point of reifying feelings into objective space, one has reached so far into the realm of philosophical acrobatics - and so far out of the realm of religion, I would think - that one ends up attempting to strengthen one limb at the expense of removing the other.

I would be more inclined to be interested in what you had to say if you came to me bearing Thomas Aquinas than this unfortunate "I can prove it!" drivel.

^^^^

Quoting logical positivism at someone who is making an argument based on one made by Alvin Plantinga is a pretty dangerous idea. John Passmore described it, "dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes." Plantinga was one of its most dangerous critics of positivism and he regards it as having a self refuting standard of evidence and I agree. Plantinga through his work on warrant has pretty much established Reformed Epistemology within the philosophical mainstream.

An Intelligent Design advocate? You want me to believe that a freaking Creationist is the great threat to logical positivism?
He may be a moderate Creationist, not a young-Earther or anything of that sort, but even so - people who make literalist claims about the existence of supernatural entities, as Creationism requires, deserve the sort of derision accorded to literalist believers in ghosts and fairies, not the sort of respect accorded to philosophers. This isn't the 1200s, you know.

I would have voted that option if we just have to apply human emotion to God.

But I don't think I even agree with this though.


I actually am unaware of the movie, but I will have to disagree with you on this issue.

No belief making system we have is so infallible that acceptable disagreement with all other belief systems is plausible. I mean, we live in a world where 15% of the population is believed to have had an auditory hallucination, where 6% of the population is believed to have experienced a transfer of thoughts from one mind to the other, and where frankly, all sorts of people have errors in their perception all of the time. To say that a fallible sense can be held above the consensus of its peers seems downright questionable, and to say that a sense that cannot be tested by other senses is highly reliable, or even infallible is just ludicrous.

I will agree with you that classical foundationalism fails, but the proper direction is more towards the fallibilist foundherentism, not towards dogmatism.



Logically consistent does not mean epistemic good practice. It is perfectly logically consistent of me to claim that the earth is flat, despite all claims made by others to the contrary, it is not good practice though.

Good practice means that while we take our own claims seriously, we also have to take the claims of others seriously. Some arguments even exist that rational belief formation requires that all belief-forming actors end up at agreement. This idea is expressed in Aumann's agreement theorem, (which I think an economist named Robin Hanson has modified to be more workable). As it stands, would you believe that you saw Elvis walking down the street yesterday after a friend told you that Elvis died 3 days ago? Probably not, as much as your memory is basic to you, the fact that other perceived facts disagree with you is enough to change your mind. The fact of the matter is that in proposing that you and others can experience the Holy Spirit, you have to take these others are other experiencing agents with the same ability to perceive the world as you have. The problem is that you then ultimately need to be able to explain (away) the perceptions of others and how they diverge from your own, and why your opinion is more valid than their own. And so, the Mormon and the Hindu provide a challenge, as they have experiences that flatly contradict your own, but you still have to recognize that these experiences are valid, as this is also part of the set of basic beliefs, it is the belief in other minds. And reconciling the two issues is really a problem here.

Actually, the witness of the Holy Spirit wouldn't be able to contradict the Hindu's perspective. The Hindu's perspective would actually subsume it. I would guess that you don't really understand Hindu theology well. Hindu theology allows for the existence of some gods that claim to be monopolistic, but that polytheism is the ultimate truth, as such your epistemic position under Hinduism would be one of a blind man and an elephant. The Hindu will insist that there is an elephant, but you'll only experience the trunk(Holy Spirit). The issue is that Hindu experiences do not make as much sense under a Christian framework, as "the devil is lying to you" only goes so far before it loses plausibility, as such, you can't subsume the Hindu's experience as effectively into your framework. This is a problem, as coherency is another basic belief we have about reality, and more coherent beliefs are more valid than less coherent beliefs.

In the end, I see this as ridiculous. Mankind generally agrees upon the other "basic beliefs", but this one? Well, mankind doesn't agree on it. Many people claim as basic something else. The very existence of the belief may actually be culturally engineered in the first place. So... why should we even believe it is basic? What separates your experience of the Holy Spirit from the rats inside a neuroscientist's brain? http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjour ... 3/422.full It seems that the rats are as "properly basic" as the Holy Spirit as well.

Actually, I'd have to say that Reformed Epistemology is really only in the philosophy of religion mainstream, not in the general philosophy mainstream. There are other alternatives to foundationalism and most of them aren't apologetics for religion. Heck, some scholars of religion actually contest Plantinga's philosophical framework on theological grounds, that is that scripture doesn't uphold his self-authentication idea strongly enough for Reformed Epistemology to work in the way he desires it to.

Now, I actually agree with 91 that logical positivism is dead. I disagree with 91 on the depths of this, because even if straight-up logical positivism is dead, that does not mean that philosophical frameworks that do similar things are also dead, and I would have to say that similar frameworks can survive, they'd instead work from naturalized epistemology, which is a more mainstream approach in epistemology than Reformed Epistemology.

As for the Plantinga, yeah... he is an ID advocate, and he is a bit loony like a lot of the other apologists.. That being said, he is still really smart. He has also retired, and as such, isn't going to be as big of a threat. I would guess that theism will not really gain as much traction in the future either, simply because the cultural shifts are such that atheism is going to rise a lot quicker than theists would want, and given that most religions are gerrymandered together, religions are going to fall into more disfavor and this is a process that will likely feed itself to some extent.

Unfortunately I do not have time to respond in detail to you AG: I am moving house today. There is however a sufficient rebuttal in the link I posted above, I suggest that if you are interested that you check it out.

@ PanoramaIsland, logical positivism is dead. Plantinga is one of the most influential thinkers on religion in the world. I would also be careful attacking beliefs on the basis of them being outdated considering your own statements.

To find out about God, a good book to read would be the Bible.
In it you can read that God made the world a perfect and lovely place where even animals didnt eat each other.

The Devil convinced us we could reject God and live independantly of him, we also then came under the Devils control, the world is therefore, and just as you describe, where the bad do well, and the good suffer.

God however promised us a King, (Jesus), and a coming Kingdom, "let your kingdom come, let your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven", you see, until that Kingdom comes, Gods will isnt being done, so its unfair to blame it on him, we are the ones who rejected him.

Heres a scripture that shows what the world will be like when he does rule it again, and for which you can credit him..
Revelation 21:4
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

I would not really consider it that great of a rebuttal. You do have to recognize that Craig's personal position is that even if he saw the rotting corpse of Jesus Christ, he would still believe. This... just isn't rational and not even worth engaging with. Even further, the claim of multiple possible "basic belief faiths" is a problem that has arisen in the academic literature surrounding Reformed Epistemology.

The concept that the life originally created with lions and tigers and wolves and all the other carnivores with claws and teeth and digestive systems for living on meat was one that had to be corrupted by some sort of demon to get these animals to kill and eat prey is something only a demented idiot could accept as describing reality. I am sorry for you.

Oh thank you, you can send me money if you like, that allways helps.

It doesn't help an ability to think clearly.