CALLED DAWKIN'S BLUFF!

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LOL That's exactly what I'm saying: it's not. You can have your personal relationship with this 'god' in your head. But you're claiming a god exists, who has control over me and everyone else, and who affects the entire planet. You can't possibly now of such a thing. All you know is what goes on in your head.

1. But how do you KNOW whether they have this relationship or not? lol You were just going on about how I can't know about your relationship with god, now you're using other people's so-called relationship with god to back up your points. I don't know if you do or not. You don't know if they do or not. So, to you, it IS just you.

2 & 3. So what else do you know? You can't know about my relationship (or lack of) to god.

4. Point is, you can't know anything about me. And for a Christian god to exist, he would have to have some sort of effect on me. I don't mean he'd reveal himself to me, but that he would have some control over me. And you can't know that. All you know is its relationship to yourself.

"best determination of truth through reason" - if this is all that
knowledge is, just a SUBJECTIVE judgment, of what is true and
what isn't, ragtime certainly CAN claim that he knows God. At least
to himself. And you certainly can deny it - again to yourself. And I
can believe that my sofa wants me, sexually.

No, once you disassociate knowledge from some underlying
reality, you lose any objective value to the term. And, when
that objective reality is defined within our knowledge, how can
you do otherwise.

Of course, the classical view of knowledge is that one both
believes (through reason ect.) AND it is a true representation
of underlying reality. But, then we can never know that we know,
and can't really speak of knowledge at all.

Well, you have little choice with her claim.
Let's say that I claim to not understand the calculus.
What can you do? On the other hand, if I say that I
do understand it, and thus should be trusted in my
arguments as to why some bridge should be built,
you MIGHT just think it important to challenge my
claims.

IMO, It is arrogant of our small species to think that we can perceive everything that exists, that our perception is the point of reference by which existence is measured.

But if our perception is all we have, we can't claim to know of anything which can only be recognised with more than what our perception allows.

Certainly a law in good logic. The denial of this rule is illogical as it is one of the most basic premises and fundamentally true. I would argue that to deny this rule you must first disprove it as it is merely common sense and seen as an axiom.

The claim is that God is bound by sense, and therefore logic. This is to some extent a denial of pure omnipotence, but I think the counter claim could be that God is bound by these things because he created them, they are a part of him and what we discover of him rather than our creation misapplied.

The universal inability to know something for certain, or know that one knows it, as dealt with in the field of epistomology, is a true reflection of human limits -- our brains are able to be fooled quite easily. But God is not human, nor does he possess such limits. And reason says that a metaphysical human soul would have different properties than a physical human brain, and not have the same physical limitations on such things as knowledge.[/quote]

So, if you know in such a way,
are you not claiming that you
ARE God?

It's just one small step. Time to
accept your subjective reality

Using one's faculty of reason involves consulting the world outside oneself, and if that world tells you that your feelings cannot be relied upon to reflect an underlying truth, that piece of information should be taken into consideration.

If you don't believe in any underlying truths at all, this entire argument should seem a bit irrelevant, non?



I agree 100%.



You mean when objective reality is defined through the lens of our subjective experience?

That level of philosophy is too heavy to be included in this particular debate, in my opinion.

Again, if you choose to believe that no objective reality actually exists, debating whether something is or is not ....is not at all useful. Nor possible.



All knowledge is faith, ironically.

And we all have a certain standard of evidence which must be met before we will consent to believe in any given aspect of that which is known as reality. (Or that which is unreal, as the case may be.)

Holding that standard too low makes us believe in that which is commonly considered fanciful, irrational, or even crazy.

Holding that standard too high leads to equally impaired functioning.

The very fact that we must cope with the constraints of reality as we go about our philosophizing is a piece of evidence pointing toward the existence of something objective.

She can choose to ignore my belief; God gave her free will. Why isn't she comfortable ignoring my belief?

Last edited by Ragtime on 14 Aug 2007, 1:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why aren't you comfortable ignoring my sexuality/gender? You always carry on posting in the gay threads, I will carry on posting in these threads.

I believe God is many, many things in addition to what the Bible claims. The claims are true, but naturally can only be a snapshot of an infinite God. The Bible doesn't say anywhere near everything about God, and I don't claim to know more than a fraction of the truth about Him.

Then why are you taking issue with it in post after post? Just say "I don't believe you", and we'll part ways on the issue. You're the one who jumped on me in the first place for claiming that I actually think my religion is true. After all, isn't that what a religion usually is? Something that you deeply believe is true.

Wow, you're actually using the right words now.

Think? Yes.
Believe? Yes.
Know? No.

If I'm not mistaken, she just said that she is comfortable ignoring the fact that you believe.

But part of your beliefs is the obligation to evangelize and so you put yourself in the position of debating whether there's any truth to your beliefs. There are many observers here. You can't turn on your heel and pretend you've never invited this sort of discussion.

Thank you. That's all I was saying.