Is a theist's testimony obligatory for others?

Signal said:
All we run-of-the-mill people know "about God" (whether it really is about God or not, is another matter), we heard from people. Not from God Himself.

Those same people who tell us "about God" are also the ones who claim what God's terms are.

It is this fact that we run-of-the-mill people know "about God" only from people,
that makes people's testimony the highest instance of information and judgment for us,
at least for all practical purposes, if not even in absolute terms (if some particular religions, such as some schools of Christianity where each believer is considered an authoritative representative of God, are true, then the latter is also the case).
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What do you know that isn't from people?

jan.
 
Jan Ardena said:
What do you know that isn't from people?
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As far as I can tell, everything I know is directly or indirectly from other people.


For example: I have a muscle injury in my right thigh; the experience of the pain is private, it is something I know on a level of sensing.
Yet, the way I think about the injury and the pain is in some way or another related to what I have learned from other people.
Without what I have learned from other people, I have no idea what having this muscle injury would be like, what I would feel and think about it.
 
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Signal said:
As far as I can tell, everything I know is directly or indirectly from other people.


For example: I have a muscle injury in my right thigh; the experience of the pain is private, it is something I know on a level of sensing.
Yet, the way I think about the injury and the pain is in some way or another related to what I have learned from other people.
Without what I have learned from other people, I have no idea what having this muscle injury would be like, what I would feel and think about it.
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then obligatory testimony scores yet another feather in its cap
:shrug:
 
Arioch said:
Whose testimony it is is irrelevant. I wouldn't care if it was the testimony of every single person on earth, it still doesn't equal evidence. Belief is never evidence.
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how many ppl would it take to convince you there is a duck in the box?

This is deep fried tripe on a bike. I was a theist, remember, I know full well how the mindset works. Not once did I actually see or experience god, I just had experiences which I believed were from god. Big difference.
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so you will not settle for anything less than empirical proof?
which brings us back to the logical fallacy of the 'proof' question..

BTW..you had experiences the you 'believed' were from God..why can't they be from God?


And this is why testimony is not evidence. Why should I take your testimony over, say, a muslim's testimony, or a hindu's? There's no reason to do so unless you provide evidence to corroborate your testimony.
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actually i have not given you my testimony..but i would not expect you to just take my word for it..this would be a case of you listening to Man instead of God..IOW one should not listen to only one man..

it was common practice to drill holes in the skull to relieve everything from headaches to narcolepsy. This was because the belief, and testimony, was that demons were causing these illnesses by taking up residence in the skull and a hole needed to be drilled to let them out. This was the testimony of virtually every medical "expert" at that time. Did that testimony constitute evidence that demons were actually causing these things? Absolutely not.
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good point.don't have an argument for this..
 
lightgigantic said:
then obligatory testimony scores yet another feather in its cap
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How could it be otherwise?

What holds you back from considering other theists' testimony to be obligatory for you?

Do you have something that you can really call "you" or "your own" that is completely unaffected by other people?
 
Signal said:
It's a discussion forum; about presenting arguments and counterarguments.
Do you have any counterarguments to the view presented by Yazata that I quoted?
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No, because she has expressed a personal opinion.
To counter it, would be to counter her as a person.

jan.
 
NMSquirrel said:
um..yes..
that is why you look for many testimonies to form a more clearer picture of what is in the box.
nothing has been discussed as to whether a testimony is a stand alone piece of evidence..other evidence/testimonies are needed to be able to have any reasonable conclusions.
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Truth is a matter of consensus?
 
Signal said:
All we run-of-the-mill people know "about God" (whether it really is about God or not, is another matter), we heard from people. Not from God Himself.
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I hold open the possibility of direct religious experience. (I'm very interested in the world's 'mystical' traditions.)

The problem is that religious experiences seem to be totally personal and subjective. They may be totally convincing to the individual who's enjoying them, but far more problematic when other people are informed that they must believe the same things too.

Returning to the legal analogy, while the testimony of one witness is sufficient evidence to establish a fact, that's only true if the witness' testimony is given full credit. So we jurors are going to need some reason why we should give another person's religious testimony full credit.

I live in a rather mixed and polyglot place. (Silicon Valley.) There are adherents of many different religions living around here and local residents like myself often come into contact with people who believe different things than we do.

My point in the text that you quoted was stated from within that religious-diversity context and was intended to say that another person's believing something different than what I believe doesn't really obligate me in any way to change my own beliefs or to believe as the other person does.

So returning to your question from the subject line: "Is a theist's testimony obligatory for others?"

My answer is that it being testimony from a theist doesn't obligate me in any way.

But the possibility still exists that the theist's testimony really is true. In that case, I might very well be obligated. But the thing that would be obligating me in that case would be God, not the fact that I'd been told something by a theist.

So the problem becomes one of looking beyond the theists themselves and of determining the credibility of whatever it is that they are saying about their God.

Given the contradictory nature of religious testimony, and given the purported witnesses' inability to establish exactly how they came to be in a position to know what they insist that they do know, I don't think that the things that they say can be judged credible beyond a reasonable doubt.

Which leaves me an agnostic...
 
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Signal said:
Truth is a matter of consensus?
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a matter of consensus as a means to find your own truths
What does God want for YOU?
This is between you and what you think God is showing you in your life,
IOW no other man can tell you what God wants for you,
this is between you and God.
the theist can only give testimony as to how he see's/believes, with the right discernment skills one can find God through just testimonies.('just' is never enough for some ppl..)
(what is God vs what is our humanity)

Human Nature:
they can only say what God wants from them..It is human nature to suppose what is good for one, is also good for the other, this must be accounted for, when seeking God.(see justification)
 
Yazata said:
It doesn't derive from whatever human preacher happens to be claiming to be passing along a (purported) divine message.
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when someone tells me ' God told me to tell you' the first thing i think is..
If it is so important for God to communicate to me, why didn't he tell me himself? why did he have to go through you?

i said think..i'm too polite to tell them that. They are allowed their own sense of worth, its not for me to place worth on them by sharing my opinion as to the worth of their advice..
 
NMSquirrel said:
...um..yes..
that is why you look for many testimonies to form a more clearer picture of what is in the box.
nothing has been discussed as to whether a testimony is a stand alone piece of evidence..other evidence/testimonies are needed to be able to have any reasonable conclusions.
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I will indulge your train of thought here. Are all spiritual testimonies the same? I suggest no, because there are and were testimonies of all sorts of Gods, Goddesses, and other supernatural beings if we include other cultures besides Christian. This effectively invalidates personal testimony of God as reliable.
 
spidergoat said:
I will indulge your train of thought here. Are all spiritual testimonies the same? I suggest no, because there are and were testimonies of all sorts of Gods, Goddesses, and other supernatural beings if we include other cultures besides Christian.
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how do you get from here to there?
This effectively invalidates personal testimony of God as reliable.
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it reads as an incomplete though with a conclusion..

just because God wants one thing for them does not mean he wants the same for you. this doesn't invalidate their testimonies, the analogy of the dice and four ppl describing what face they see, just because one see's something different, does not in any way invalidate the others testimonies as to what they see.
 
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