Fact and Truth

[Fist and Faith]

Sin is a good example. I don't call it sin, of course, since that word comes with a lot of other things I don't believe in. But yes, people often act to hurt other people, and to hurt society.

So what do we build on that? Why do we often hurt each other? Why do I hurt others far too often, although I surely think I shouldn't? Why do some people act this way more often than not? The answer you believe is extremely different from the answer I believe. So how can we claim to know our answer is accurate in the same sense that we know gravity exists? Nobody can deny that gravity exists. We all experience it in ourselves, and see it in all other things, every day. We do not argue that it exists. That is a type of knowledge that none deny. And none deny that bad behavior exists. That is also sure knowledge. Our answers to why bad behavior exists is of a different category.


The thing I had in mind when I talked about "things we see every day" is death. Anything that is alive will die. Every living human has seen the process many times. There's no reason to believe any living thing will not die. No living human has seen something that died, and was dead for more than several minutes, come back to life.

Yet, you would have us believe that Jesus died, and arose. You say this is a historical fact. But it flies in the face of one of the absolutes of existence. It is not possible for this to have happened. You say it did. You say this is as sure a fact as the fact of gravity. I see gravity in action every day. Nobody has ever seen anybody raise from the dead. Claiming to know a specific instance of someone raising from the dead 2,000 years ago as surely as one knows gravity exists... How can these not be two different categories of knowledge?

[Vraith]

I didn't say only religions or religious people operate dogmatically.
I said, and meant it, that science and dogma are antithetical, even if some scientists are dogmatic.
Even if you don't like what you see as distortion of definition from the original, as things stand dogma starts from some Truth, science searches for.
In science, nothing is unquestionable. For dogma, something always is.
But the real problem between science/religion is those point/issues where one realm makes claims about things from the other realm.

[rusmeister]

I didn't say only religions or religious people operate dogmatically.
I said, and meant it, that science and dogma are antithetical, even if some scientists are dogmatic.
Even if you don't like what you see as distortion of definition from the original, as things stand dogma starts from some Truth, science searches for.
In science, nothing is unquestionable. For dogma, something always is.
But the real problem between science/religion is those point/issues where one realm makes claims about things from the other realm.

I translate this as follows: In knowledge, nothing is questionable. For knowledge, something always is.

If you listened to the Hopko Darwin podcast series, you would probably stop speaking of science vs religion - at least you would be aware of the gross and excessive oversimplification.

What you mean is that in the natural sciences, nothing is unquestionable. True. But all knowledge is based on dogmas. I obviously have a radically different definition than you do - and have stated it here, and one based on serious thought (and with dictionary support). Define what YOU mean by dogma, rather than merely assuming a meaning that I already don't accept. If you KNOW something, and it is sure knowledge, that you see as actually true, rather than merely hypothetical, then you hold a dogma. In my definition, dogma is essential to building any science. One can not make advancements in knowledge unless one actually KNOWS something. If one does not have a rock-solid dogma that reason is valid, then one cannot claim any certain knowledge of anything at all.

A pity GKC goes ignored around here.
www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch20.html

Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.

Maybe that helps make a little sense of my seemingly strange position...

[rusmeister]

Sin is a good example. I don't call it sin, of course, since that word comes with a lot of other things I don't believe in. But yes, people often act to hurt other people, and to hurt society.

So what do we build on that? Why do we often hurt each other? Why do I hurt others far too often, although I surely think I shouldn't? Why do some people act this way more often than not? The answer you believe is extremely different from the answer I believe. So how can we claim to know our answer is accurate in the same sense that we know gravity exists? Nobody can deny that gravity exists. We all experience it in ourselves, and see it in all other things, every day. We do not argue that it exists. That is a type of knowledge that none deny. And none deny that bad behavior exists. That is also sure knowledge. Our answers to why bad behavior exists is of a different category.

We disagree at the point where you say "in the same sense". It looks like you want to only admit as knowable truth that which can be experimented on in the method of natural science. I think that knowledge obtained both by that path and by other paths - such as the aggregate of personal experience or of personal revelation - can also be surely known. I even think that there are people that deny the theory of gravity (which is only our science of today). There are people who hold that if we only more properly knew the nature of the universe, we could defy gravity. I'll add, in a guarded manner, that I am one of them. I believe that in His earthly ministry, Christ not only showed what God can do in walking on water and other miracles, including the Ascension (which, for all I know, wasn't necessarily vertical, but that's the language that the witnesses described it in), but what restored Man will be able to do (some of which have definitely been reported of some apostles and saints, from Peter to St Mary of Egypt).

So I agree when you say "different category". Obviously. I disagree if you suggest that this makes the knowledge any less sure or valid as knowledge.

The thing I had in mind when I talked about "things we see every day" is death. Anything that is alive will die. Every living human has seen the process many times. There's no reason to believe any living thing will not die. No living human has seen something that died, and was dead for more than several minutes, come back to life.

Quite.
It was this very topic and meditating on death that led me to faith. It was totally grasping that fact of my own existence - that it will surely come to a final end, and more importantly, grasping that the temporal sense of existence is meaningless - anyone reading my words at any point after my death can say, yeah, he SAID that, but he's dead NOW. I will be, in a most literal and awful way, the past tense. I was able - or enabled - to see beyond the fact that I am alive *now* (whenever "now" is) and to get that in the most vital sense, I might as well already be dead; to see the point in time where I am not - the gift given to Ebenezer Scrooge. This can easily be a barrier - the illusion of life - that we are "still" alive (a term as ephemeral as "now").

On Mt Athos (Greece) amid the monasteries, there is a charnel room where the skulls of deceased monks through the centuries are kept. There is an inscription there that says something to the effect "As you are, so we were. As we are, so shall you be". Couldn't find a photo of the inscription (probably in Greek), but here's one shot:
photography.nationalgeographic.com/phot ... image.html

Yet, you would have us believe that Jesus died, and arose. You say this is a historical fact. But it flies in the face of one of the absolutes of existence. It is not possible for this to have happened. You say it did. You say this is as sure a fact as the fact of gravity. I see gravity in action every day. Nobody has ever seen anybody raise from the dead. Claiming to know a specific instance of someone raising from the dead 2,000 years ago as surely as one knows gravity exists... How can these not be two different categories of knowledge?

2 categories, yes.
And yet we can be as sure. If a dogma that only the scientific truths can be really really true does not blind us to the possibility of truths of knowledge outside the natural sciences, all one needs to do is choose to believe. It is that simple. An exercise of an act of will. Indiana Jones and the LC.
Of course, your experience is not mine, and I'd say there's something else you lack - in the motivation to do so, and I don't know what that is. As long as one is satisfied by the present, there's no reason they can see to go looking for something else.

[Fist and Faith]

So I agree when you say "different category". Obviously. I disagree if you suggest that this makes the knowledge any less sure or valid as knowledge.

This is among the most important things we've ever said to each other. No, not less sure or valid to the person who claims to know whatever it is. The problem is in transmitting that knowledge. If you base what you want other people to do on knowledge that cannot be transmitted, then you can hardly blame anyone for not doing those things. Despite any fancy way you want to word it, you and I both know, absolutely, that gravity exists. We are not floating around in the air, unable to control where we go; we can drop a baseball, and we are 100% certain that it will fall, and we don't even need to look to be sure it did; etc. And gravity is consistent. We don't sometimes find ourselves floating around; and the baseball doesn't only fall sometimes; etc.

But you want us to base our actions on a story about someone who acted in ways that cannot have happened if gravity was as it is. The problem is that you can't transmit the knowledge that Jesus did do those things. The knowledge that Jesus did what he did is in a different category than the knowledge that gravity exists.

[rusmeister]

So I agree when you say "different category". Obviously. I disagree if you suggest that this makes the knowledge any less sure or valid as knowledge.

This is among the most important things we've ever said to each other. No, not less sure or valid to the person who claims to know whatever it is. The problem is in transmitting that knowledge. If you base what you want other people to do on knowledge that cannot be transmitted, then you can hardly blame anyone for not doing those things. Despite any fancy way you want to word it, you and I both know, absolutely, that gravity exists. We are not floating around in the air, unable to control where we go; we can drop a baseball, and we are 100% certain that it will fall, and we don't even need to look to be sure it did; etc. And gravity is consistent. We don't sometimes find ourselves floating around; and the baseball doesn't only fall sometimes; etc.

But you want us to base our actions on a story about someone who acted in ways that cannot have happened if gravity was as it is. The problem is that you can't transmit the knowledge that Jesus did do those things. The knowledge that Jesus did what he did is in a different category than the knowledge that gravity exists.

I think it true that we would likely accept a large number of claims of our current science as true, and more of those than claims of causes of human behavior.

But the hows that natural sciences can explain are of a magnitude of importance far less than the whys that religion/philosophy explain. Who gives a flying rat's behind if gravity operates thus-and-so if nothing means anything; if existence is pointless? The things that really matter cannot be proven via the scientific method. So that they cannot be so proven is really irrelevant. Just watched "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" with my older son, and I almost applauded when Nick Cage goes about his antagonist: "His moral compass doesn't exactly point north", a recognition of an enormous truth that makes whatever we can prove about gravity immaterial by comparison - and that is outside the purview of the natural sciences. It can probably be expressed most succinctly by saying that the natural sciences can give us facts. They cannot give us truth. So reference to them as a criteria for truth is simply a philosophical failure - just like a Creationist teaching a Biblical creation in six 24-hr days as science is a scientific failure.

So I certainly agree with your last comment, anyway. It is evident to me, though, that the category my claims are in is far more important to our existence.

[Fist and Faith]

But you're doing it even now. You claim a knowledge of things that give certain meanings to existence. You cannot transmit that knowledge. I have no reason to believe it. I have no reason to believe that the meaning I give to things while I am here is not the only valid meaning they have. And that meaning is of utmost importance to me. Some of the "gravity operates thus-and-so" things fit into my meanings.

And, of course, the joy of learning and exploring is its own reward. Joy doesn't need any meaning outside itself. Posteriors of airborn rodents are not necessary.

[Vraith]

Rus, you keep thinking you understand me or interpreting me and then showing you don't.
Starting at the end: what GKC said is true if, and only if, the universe is, from smallest to largest, at every moment, then now and forever, predetermined, completely inflexible. The turnip and trees thing is ludicrous.
I know what I know right now, and act accordingly [or hypocritically if I know a thing and act contrarily]...but I'm body-surfing on a sea; if it shifts, I shift...knowing something else. What was true isn't, what is true wasn't...and that's how the universe goes. He's standing on a tower of dogma, and if the ground shifts he's crushed in the rubble. Dogma is founded on "This is." science on "What if?" [this is so no matter what particular practitioners of either do/say]. Or, a different way....on any non-dogmatic path both "I" and/or "the tenet/basis/philosophy" can/might be wrong. In the dogmatic, only "I" can be wrong.
But the real point was that most of science v. religion is due to one or the other stepping outside the ring. Religion has no business forcing me to believe demonstrable lies [as I've said before, your particular brand is less guilty of this than a large number of others...not truly innocent, though], anymore than science has any business declaring factually there is no god whatsoever...it isn't equipped to do that. At least not yet, and I'm fairly confident it won't ever come to a point where it can say yes or no to god with certainty.
The funny thing is...if god is, and wanted too do so, s/he/it could end the debate at any time...actually, at EVERY time...but hasn't seen fit to do so.
Right now [this just popped in my head, might be one of those things that seems nifty, but can't stand up to examination] it seems the main difference between me and people like me, and you and people like you is that one kind thinks "faith fills the emptiness, we just can't understand everything," the other "if it was TRUE, there wouldn't BE any empty places."

[rusmeister]

But you're doing it even now. You claim a knowledge of things that give certain meanings to existence. You cannot transmit that knowledge. I have no reason to believe it. I have no reason to believe that the meaning I give to things while I am here is not the only valid meaning they have. And that meaning is of utmost importance to me. Some of the "gravity operates thus-and-so" things fit into my meanings.

And, of course, the joy of learning and exploring is its own reward. Joy doesn't need any meaning outside itself. Posteriors of airborn rodents are not necessary.

Well, I can certainly transmit that knowledge if you accept it as knowledge. That is a matter of choice upon your part. You are free to go on rejecting that choice for the rest of your life - or you can, at any time, choose to accept it and act on it.

But as long as you have no motivation, as long as you are satisfied with where you are now, you won't. In my case, there were two things - dissatisfaction with present circumstances of the time, and a grasp of future dissatisfaction. IOW, certain things in my life that I had built my life around in the material world were disintegrating, and I got that I really am going to die someday, with a complete end and practical reversal of everything I was living for as a materialist agnostic. For years before that I told myself that I could not 'simply press a button and believe'. Then one day I discovered that I could simply press that 'belief button' - that it really WAS a matter of choice.

[rusmeister]

Rus, you keep thinking you understand me or interpreting me and then showing you don't.
Starting at the end: what GKC said is true if, and only if, the universe is, from smallest to largest, at every moment, then now and forever, predetermined, completely inflexible. The turnip and trees thing is ludicrous.

Starting here, I'd say that SOME THINGS ABOUT the universe must be completely inflexible. Not everything in the universe. That WOULD be ludicrous.
But there can be no sure and certain knowledge of anything if those some things are not absolutely true. So there are absolutes, and there are relatives. I kick against the view that there is no such thing as absolutes (and so some people misinterpret that as 'there are no such things as relatives'). On those things, the trees and turnips thing is...absolutely true. They really DO know nothing - they really aren't sapient. And I can only say that if it is actually true.

I know what I know right now, and act accordingly [or hypocritically if I know a thing and act contrarily]...but I'm body-surfing on a sea; if it shifts, I shift...knowing something else. What was true isn't, what is true wasn't...and that's how the universe goes. He's standing on a tower of dogma, and if the ground shifts he's crushed in the rubble. Dogma is founded on "This is." science on "What if?" [this is so no matter what particular practitioners of either do/say]. Or, a different way....on any non-dogmatic path both "I" and/or "the tenet/basis/philosophy" can/might be wrong. In the dogmatic, only "I" can be wrong.

What was true isn't, what is true wasn't

Obviously, what I am saying is that that what was true IS true, and what wasn't true ISN'T true. That one of the views is (in an eternal sense) actually wrong and the other actually right. But it looks like you are talking about learning processes, where we really do start from knowing nothing and gradually build a system of dogmas - things we find to be true, to the point where most see gravity as an absolute. Obviously, if we find something to actually be untrue then we correct our understandings. We should not thereby disdain truth or say there is none - that's like the fox calling the grapes 'sour'.

I'm talking about obtained knowledge. The scientific assertion of the multiplication table, and the moral assertion that murder is evil do not become 'outdated' or 'moldy'. We do not, at any point, find them to be false. Therefore it is reasonable to hold these as dogma. The person who does not is the person in the process of becoming a turnip, like Bill Clinton asking "what does 'is' mean?".

But the real point was that most of science v. religion is due to one or the other stepping outside the ring. Religion has no business forcing me to believe demonstrable lies [as I've said before, your particular brand is less guilty of this than a large number of others...not truly innocent, though], anymore than science has any business declaring factually there is no god whatsoever...it isn't equipped to do that. At least not yet, and I'm fairly confident it won't ever come to a point where it can say yes or no to god with certainty.

I quite agree.

The funny thing is...if god is, and wanted too do so, s/he/it could end the debate at any time...actually, at EVERY time...but hasn't seen fit to do so.
Right now [this just popped in my head, might be one of those things that seems nifty, but can't stand up to examination] it seems the main difference between me and people like me, and you and people like you is that one kind thinks "faith fills the emptiness, we just can't understand everything," the other "if it was TRUE, there wouldn't BE any empty places."

I've already offered my own posit of "the Godzilla effect" as a (simplistic) rational explanation as to why God doesn't simply appear to us and say "Worship Me!". The five-second version of that is that we would not be choosing good for its own sake - we would be doing so out of force and fear. We would pee our pants like the guy in the movie.
That leaves us with (the possibility of) the idea as true, and the necessity of 'empty places'.

There are a million things that it is OK for me to be agnostic on - I don't need to claim to know everything or be a universal answer man, although I would like to satisfy my curiosity if it were possible - some of the mysteries we get only glimpses of in Orthodoxy is the existence of beings we can hardly imagine - what exactly ARE cherubim (-im is a plural form) and seraphim? That the latter are six-winged and many-eyed (practically the only fact we claim to know about them on the basis of revelation) would scare the bejeebers out of us if we were actually confronted by one that we could perceive in our physical universe - or were given the spiritual perception to perceive spiritually.

As is, in a Fallen world, in the absence of a manifest God, we see both good and evil in operation, and have both the opportunity and necessity of deciding which we prefer - and even that we can convince ourselves that some evils are not evil, and so we can grasp the idea of self-deception. We are enabled to choose freely in this absence of manifestation.

[Fist and Faith]

But you're doing it even now. You claim a knowledge of things that give certain meanings to existence. You cannot transmit that knowledge. I have no reason to believe it. I have no reason to believe that the meaning I give to things while I am here is not the only valid meaning they have. And that meaning is of utmost importance to me. Some of the "gravity operates thus-and-so" things fit into my meanings.

And, of course, the joy of learning and exploring is its own reward. Joy doesn't need any meaning outside itself. Posteriors of airborn rodents are not necessary.

Well, I can certainly transmit that knowledge if you accept it as knowledge. That is a matter of choice upon your part. You are free to go on rejecting that choice for the rest of your life - or you can, at any time, choose to accept it and act on it.

But you can't transmit that knowledge the way you can transmit the knowledge of, say, heat. We can all feel it. You can demonstrate how different intensities of it do different things. It is a type of knowledge that is not debatable. "If we do this, it gets hotter." "Look, the thermometer says X, and that substance catches on fire. Let's try again. Hey, it seems to catch fire at that temperature every time."

But as long as you have no motivation, as long as you are satisfied with where you are now, you won't. In my case, there were two things - dissatisfaction with present circumstances of the time, and a grasp of future dissatisfaction. IOW, certain things in my life that I had built my life around in the material world were disintegrating, and I got that I really am going to die someday, with a complete end and practical reversal of everything I was living for as a materialist agnostic. For years before that I told myself that I could not 'simply press a button and believe'. Then one day I discovered that I could simply press that 'belief button' - that it really WAS a matter of choice.

This is exactly the kind of thing I started this thread for. As I've often said, dissatisfaction with one thing is not evidence that some other specific thing is fact. IMO, believing something out of fear is very unfortunate. Fortunately, I don't have those particular fears/dissatisfactions, so it's not an issue. But this isn't the first time you've said this was your motivation for embracing faith.

Still, you couldn't embrace any faith. The one you were taught in the beginning was impossible to shake, even if you had problems with some specifics. But you found a particular understanding of it that works for you. A true understanding.

Our answers, our truths, to the question of oblivion are different. Our answers to the effects of heat on varioius substances are not.

[rusmeister]

But you're doing it even now. You claim a knowledge of things that give certain meanings to existence. You cannot transmit that knowledge. I have no reason to believe it. I have no reason to believe that the meaning I give to things while I am here is not the only valid meaning they have. And that meaning is of utmost importance to me. Some of the "gravity operates thus-and-so" things fit into my meanings.

And, of course, the joy of learning and exploring is its own reward. Joy doesn't need any meaning outside itself. Posteriors of airborn rodents are not necessary.

Well, I can certainly transmit that knowledge if you accept it as knowledge. That is a matter of choice upon your part. You are free to go on rejecting that choice for the rest of your life - or you can, at any time, choose to accept it and act on it.

But you can't transmit that knowledge the way you can transmit the knowledge of, say, heat. We can all feel it. You can demonstrate how different intensities of it do different things. It is a type of knowledge that is not debatable. "If we do this, it gets hotter." "Look, the thermometer says X, and that substance catches on fire. Let's try again. Hey, it seems to catch fire at that temperature every time."

Well it looks to me like the only way you would accept a transmission of the knowledge of heat from me, if you didn't have it, was if I managed to burn you. But again, the analogy only goes so far. Since I agree with you that the category is different - and not sure whether we agree that the "why" category that the natural sciences CANNOT answer is far more important than the "how" category questions which they can - this is not going to get us very far. Moral truth might get us a little further along - although it is likely we would have a quick 'crash-and-burn' somewhere along the way.

But as long as you have no motivation, as long as you are satisfied with where you are now, you won't. In my case, there were two things - dissatisfaction with present circumstances of the time, and a grasp of future dissatisfaction. IOW, certain things in my life that I had built my life around in the material world were disintegrating, and I got that I really am going to die someday, with a complete end and practical reversal of everything I was living for as a materialist agnostic. For years before that I told myself that I could not 'simply press a button and believe'. Then one day I discovered that I could simply press that 'belief button' - that it really WAS a matter of choice.

This is exactly the kind of thing I started this thread for. As I've often said, dissatisfaction with one thing is not evidence that some other specific thing is fact. IMO, believing something out of fear is very unfortunate. Fortunately, I don't have those particular fears/dissatisfactions, so it's not an issue. But this isn't the first time you've said this was your motivation for embracing faith.

Still, you couldn't embrace any faith. The one you were taught in the beginning was impossible to shake, even if you had problems with some specifics. But you found a particular understanding of it that works for you. A true understanding.

Our answers, our truths, to the question of oblivion are different. Our answers to the effects of heat on varioius substances are not.

Our answers ARE different. But they are not "our truths". They are what we hold to be true. Whether that aligns with the external universe so as to be sufficiently complete and correct from an objective point of view remains to be seen.
Now I think fear to be an extremely fortunate way to discover truth. It is much more likely to motivate us to discover a TRUE answer than mere intellectual curiosity.

One thing that comes up for me with this post, though. Even though the categories are manifestly different, you seem to be seeking the same criteria for knowing truth. And that seems to me to be a fundamental error - that of applying criteria of natural science to super-natural knowledge. ("Show me and I'll believe") The tool is not designed to measure the phenomenon, any more than a radiation meter can measure electrical resistance, or a measuring cup tell you how many volts are in an electrical system.

[Fist and Faith]

One thing that comes up for me with this post, though. Even though the categories are manifestly different, you seem to be seeking the same criteria for knowing truth. And that seems to me to be a fundamental error - that of applying criteria of natural science to super-natural knowledge. ("Show me and I'll believe") The tool is not designed to measure the phenomenon, any more than a radiation meter can measure electrical resistance, or a measuring cup tell you how many volts are in an electrical system.

I'm not seeking that same criteria. The reason I started this particular conversation a couple days ago is because you've been upset lately about all the disagreements others and I have with most things you say. Your posts have had a negative attitude. I'm trying to explain why we disagree. Many of us do, indeed, demand that knowledge we are supposed to accept as fact, and that we are then supposed to act on accordingly, be demonstrated in certain ways. You are not demonstrating things in any of those ways, and, so, we don't accept these things as facts. And you're getting angry about it. I'm just saying, you can say the things you've said for four years for another four years, and it won't convince us. If you didn't understand before, perhaps you do now. Or we're getting there? And you can find a different approach.

Or, for your own benefit, find a way to not be so annoyed. I'm not even slightly angry/upset/annoyed/whatever it is you are, that you do not accept my truths. Don't get so worked up, eh? heh

My position remains that your chosen criteria for deciding how to behave and how to pick the political powers are perfectly acceptable. Why would you want anyone other than those who you believe best represent the God you believe in? But when you try to convince us of things based only on those criteria, we will not agree.

[rusmeister]

One thing that comes up for me with this post, though. Even though the categories are manifestly different, you seem to be seeking the same criteria for knowing truth. And that seems to me to be a fundamental error - that of applying criteria of natural science to super-natural knowledge. ("Show me and I'll believe") The tool is not designed to measure the phenomenon, any more than a radiation meter can measure electrical resistance, or a measuring cup tell you how many volts are in an electrical system.

I'm not seeking that same criteria.

This seems to be to be contradicted by the sum of all that you have said in general.

Is there truly no difference between dogma that is the result of extensive observation and experimentation, producing predictable results; and dogma that cannot be tested or observed, and the results cannot be known until after we die? Is "knowing" really nothing more than accepting that something is true? And things that can be seen personally, by every human being, every minute of every day of our lives are not more surely known than things that no living human could make any claim to have seen personally, and which violate what every human being sees every minute of every day?

Your own answers definitely stack in favor of materialism, of the demand of application of scientific criteria to what you will believe. "I'll believe it when I see it". Only such people won't believe, even then. They'll explain it away. Christ said in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that even if someone rose from the dead (to warn the rich man's brothers) they would not believe.

But whatever. Fighting on shifting ground is no fair test of strength - or truth. So I see no reason to do that.

The reason I started this particular conversation a couple days ago is because you've been upset lately about all the disagreements others and I have with most things you say. Your posts have had a negative attitude. I'm trying to explain why we disagree. Many of us do, indeed, demand that knowledge we are supposed to accept as fact, and that we are then supposed to act on accordingly, be demonstrated in certain ways. You are not demonstrating things in any of those ways, and, so, we don't accept these things as facts. And you're getting angry about it. I'm just saying, you can say the things you've said for four years for another four years, and it won't convince us. If you didn't understand before, perhaps you do now. Or we're getting there? And you can find a different approach.

Or, for your own benefit, find a way to not be so annoyed. I'm not even slightly angry/upset/annoyed/whatever it is you are, that you do not accept my truths. Don't get so worked up, eh? heh

My position remains that your chosen criteria for deciding how to behave and how to pick the political powers are perfectly acceptable. Why would you want anyone other than those who you believe best represent the God you believe in? But when you try to convince us of things based only on those criteria, we will not agree.

It's interesting that you impute emotional motivation to me and none to yourself. If my chosen criteria are perfectly acceptable, then accept them! (Only they aren't "mine". Come and see!)

[Fist and Faith]

There's no contradiction. I was establishing that there are different categories of knowledge. Some knowledge is established in certain ways, and some in other ways. You accept certain types that I (and others) do not. And you get upset when I do not. Hence the post that you apologized for; the numerous "Although I'm sure nobody will bother reading this GKC link" posts; etc. I'm just saying I will not accept things as fact when they are established in certain ways. So either stop trying those ways, or stop being bothered by it. Other than repeatedly proving to yourself that you are better than me, what's accomplished?

And you are wrong to think that, even if what Christ said in that parable does apply to some people, it applies to me. Alas, nobody I've ever known has risen from the dead, so I can't prove that I would believe such a miracle. So you can still believe that you have proven that I would not.

[rusmeister]

There's no contradiction. I was establishing that there are different categories of knowledge. Some knowledge is established in certain ways, and some in other ways. You accept certain types that I (and others) do not. And you get upset when I do not. Hence the post that you apologized for; the numerous "Although I'm sure nobody will bother reading this GKC link" posts; etc. I'm just saying I will not accept things as fact when they are established in certain ways. So either stop trying those ways, or stop being bothered by it. Other than repeatedly proving to yourself that you are better than me, what's accomplished?

And you are wrong to think that, even if what Christ said in that parable does apply to some people, it applies to me. Alas, nobody I've ever known has risen from the dead, so I can't prove that I would believe such a miracle. So you can still believe that you have proven that I would not.

This is probably the 700 and somethingth time I've said that I am certainly NOT trying to prove I am "better" than anyone. More right? Yeah. Better? Nope.

In a choice between a quote of Christ's and your assertions, I'll go with Christ. He said that if they can't accept what they do have, then even a resurrection won't help; "they will not believe". And a key in understanding that is to read "will" not simply as a future modal verb, but as an active verb "to will". It really is a matter of will. Any miracle can and will be explained away by people who will (in that sense) not believe. But I'm not trying to "prove" that now. No amount of proof can defeat will. That is what gives faith its power, and ditto for a refusal to have faith. So in the end, waiting for "proof" is vain. It is a simple choice, and it is in your hands right now. It is a matter of will.

[Fist and Faith]

So Christ meant that no person who does not believe would come to believe if they saw a miracle? There is no hope that, if I saw a resurrection, I would accept that there is, indeed, something supernatural out there?

[rusmeister]

So Christ meant that no person who does not believe would come to believe if they saw a miracle? There is no hope that, if I saw a resurrection, I would accept that there is, indeed, something supernatural out there?

I don't know.
Despite the solid impression you have that I speak in 100% absolutes (and I do think there are such things), my faith and worldview generally see things in terms of rules and exceptions. Certainly Christ was speaking about a definite rule. Whether it is universal or absolute is beyond my knowledge.

Could you be an exception? I certainly would not bet my eternal soul on it. But based on our interactions over the years, I would say that you would fall into the rule. I don't think it would matter what you saw. You'd explain it away, whether as a blob of mustard or gravy, like Scrooge did re: Jacob Marley, or as hallucination, or that the person hadn't REALLY died, or God knows what other efforts to explain a miracle away. What I get from you is a solid rejection of the possibility of miracle. And if I'm right, you almost certainly wouldn't believe one even if you saw one. That's only my opinion, of course, but it's the aggregate of our interactions. To a person to whom miracles are intrinsically impossible - based on a dogma that they must be anything but miracle - that they must have a natural explanation - no miracle would ever be perceived as one.

[Fist and Faith]

Well, as soon as a miracle takes place, we'll see what I think of it. I've never heard of any. Millions and millions of people have video cams in there cell phones. But I've never seen anything posted online, which is very easy to do. And news gets around the world pretty quickly in this day and age. But it doesn't seem that any miracles (or UFOs) are being seen. Are there any you know about that I should be looking into?

And do you object to attempts to look for fraud? If the movie Stigmata is accurate in at least this one way, the Catholic Church has priests who go around trying to make sure this or that reported miracle is legit. How often do they find it to be a hoax? Or a mistake? Or wishful thinking?

Finally, no, you don't say I fall into the rule because of our interactions over the years. You say it because of your misinterpretation of our interactions. I have never known a reason to believe there is anyting of a religious or supernatural nature. No explanations for the supernatural are more logical - are a better answer - than the explanations for the natural. And, in some cases, the explanation for the supernatural can be applied to the natural just as easily, eliminating the need for the supernatural. None of that is remotely the same as saying I would not believe a resurrection took place if I saw one.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Well, as soon as a miracle takes place, we'll see what I think of it. I've never heard of any. Millions and millions of people have video cams in there cell phones. But I've never seen anything posted online, which is very easy to do. And news gets around the world pretty quickly in this day and age. But it doesn't seem that any miracles (or UFOs) are being seen. Are there any you know about that I should be looking into?

That depends entirely upon your definition of "miracle". Something which is a miracle to other people might not seem like a miracle to you but does that make it any less miraculous?