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All believers are agnostic, every christian is an agnostic theist.
They don't know that God exists which is exactly why belief is necessary. Were there genuine knowledge, belief would be useless. You don't need to believe if knowledge is present.
Assuming knowledge is a requirement, then let's define what it is to " know " something.
Is it merely the receipt of evidence? Or must that evidence be in a form that can be repeated and shared with others so they can perceive it also?
I don't think it's fair to tell others they do not know what they profess to know. At best, when asked, one could say your proof is not satisfactory for me.
Yes it is. Knowledge, true knowledge, not emotional fortitude in lieu of genuine knowledge, can be certified. If a god exists that's not personal knowledge, it's a fact that can be verified by inspecting the claimed knowledge. Otherwise it's just an assertion, mistaken as real knowledge.
Therefore since no one can produce proof of God, knowledge god exists is unfounded, making all who believe, also as absent of knowledge of God as everyone else. I e. Agnostic
Assuming knowledge is a requirement, then let's define what it is to " know " something.
Is it merely the receipt of evidence? Or must that evidence be in a form that can be repeated and shared with others so they can perceive it also?
If it's the former, then I " know".
Otherwise, you can only take my word for it.
Knowlage is a justified true believe.
You believe in something that is true.
And truth value of your believe is justified.
Justification comes from enough evidential support to make it more likely than not that your believe is actually true. So it takes a substantial evidential support for confidence level to go over 50%.
Assuming knowledge is a requirement, then let's define what it is to " know " something.
Is it merely the receipt of evidence? Or must that evidence be in a form that can be repeated and shared with others so they can perceive it also?
If it's the former, then I " know".
Otherwise, you can only take my word for it.
The key word you chose well is perceived. To perceive you must be able to detect using reliable, repeatable mechanisms, not just anecdote. Feelings and imagination don't count because they are significantly unreliable as a basis.
The key word you chose well is perceived. To perceive you must be able to detect using reliable, repeatable mechanisms, not just anecdote. Feelings and imagination don't count because they are significantly unreliable as a basis.
I have perceived The Almighty many times.
In your view, which senses and mechanisms are required?
I have perceived The Almighty many times.
In your view, which senses and mechanisms are required?
In what way do you propose everyone other than you test/validate that happened? And how can everyone other than you be certain it was "the almighty"? How can you reliably move your experience into proven public fact? How can those facts be accepted as legitimate knowledge?
How can those facts be accepted as legitimate knowledge?
Meaning, that all other possible explanations of what was the nature of your experience combined must be less likely than "it was The Almighty" explanation.
Yes it is. Knowledge, true knowledge, not emotional fortitude in lieu of genuine knowledge, can be certified. If a god exists that's not personal knowledge, it's a fact that can be verified by inspecting the claimed knowledge. Otherwise it's just an assertion, mistaken as real knowledge.
Therefore since no one can produce proof of God, knowledge god exists is unfounded, making all who believe, also as absent of knowledge of God as everyone else. I e. Agnostic
This myopic view simply defines God out of existence by assuming existence itself is NOT God. There is no justification for doing EITHER assuming existence is God or existence is not God because we do not have any way to know what the hell existence is or is not other than that we are part of it. By assuming existence is not God you are proceeding from an unsupportable bias, just as a theist would be doing the opposite. You just want to consider your bias to be "Knowledge" but not the bias of the theist.
Meaning, that all other possible explanations of what was the nature of your experience combined must be less likely than "it was The Almighty" explanation.
Kind of tough.
No we are not dropping back to statistics and probability, which are both human inventions to handle extremely complex math and scenarios, far to vast for our human brain to manage. We are talking about what can be demonstrated to be factual, and a basis for knowledge, anything else is speculation and imagination. Saying it's too big for my imagination is weak argument for the existence of a god. It basically takes a position that either the individual is simply not capable of processing the increasingly big picture, or the data isn't available so we have to make up a placeholder (god) until it is available. Answers come, some quickly, some slowly. If humanity is still here in 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 years, how much more do you think we will have learned? Do you still think people will be arguing god exists when we have another 10K+ years of science discovery? Knowledge. It's been 2K years since Jesus, and we have less proof as time goes on. The supposed miracles are scarce and now more than ever more easily documented and inspected. Cases of cured disease: Human effort: Billions, God: 0, and that's after 2K years to prove it.
I'm still waiting for the knowledge you seem to have that god exists, that is anything other than personal feelings and sentiment. Millenia later and no one has produced such knowledge that can be verified in any meaningful way. Which is why I said everyone is agnostic, whether it has dawned on them or not.
For all practical purposes knowledge and belief are opposites.
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