Two questions

[jpappl]

Well, then for you, it is to stick with looking at apples.


19th century physics rocks, dude!

I don't think your so dense not to get what I am saying, I think you are avoiding it because you know where it leads. So instead, you would rather just dance around it.

“ So how much practicing does it take to delude myself into believing that the texts are the word of god and don't conflict with reality. ”

With an attitude like that it would probably take you forever.

Right, again if only I would try harder to accept that which has no justification for belief and replace reality with the creation story of your choice. Great.

“ No I don't believe in god. I'll leave that to those who believe to decide. ”

But you just said "Faith it is. That should be sufficient for god." You have made a statement about what should suffice for God.

I did for those who believe. In other words. You have no justification for the belief based upon the religious texts. You only have faith there is a god.

There is no evidence, so all that is left is faith. It should be good enough because that is all you got. Right.

 

[wynn]

only if you are already indoctrinated to a state of animosity towards reading as a means of making an informed decision

I think this is something many of us struggle with - this underlying notion that merely by reading, one cannot make an informed decision, especially not when it comes to issues about God.

I think it is often implied that the only valid standard for "making an informed decision" is omniscience. That one couldn't "make an informed decision" about God unless one is actually omniscient and knows all the ins and outs of deciding about God in any way.
(There is also the notion that all faith is blind.)

But such a standard is simply not realistic ... And then some admit that and conclude that we "just can't decide about (whether to believe in or put our faith in) God".

"I can't and I won't decide unless I have the certainty that my decision will be the best one possible. Without such a certainty, I will not make any decision at all."

There is even a formalized argument for agnosticism to this effect:

The more important it is to be right about a matter, the more cautious we should be in forming our beliefs. If a matter is of great importance, as religion is, then our evidential standards concerning it should be set high, we should demand strong evidence before settling on what we believe.

In fact, religion is of unquantifiable importance—there is nothing more important than being right about the question of God’s existence—and we should therefore set our evidential standards infinitely high.

If this is correct, then the standard of evidence required for justified religious belief is so high that it can never be satisfied; we can never have enough evidence to form beliefs about such questions as whether God exists. In this way, the importance of religion works to suggest that we can never have religious knowledge, that we ought to remain agnostic.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/arguments-for-agnosticism/the-argument-from-uncertainty/

But what this atittude brings about is like this:

Analysis Paralysis/Delay Default

Dealing with uncertainty can be very difficult when it is not clear what will happen if a dispute is resolved in a particular way. Often the parties attempt to get around this problem by conducting more and more studies in hopes of eliminating all uncertainty and finding a risk-free way of resolving the dispute or making a decision. Unfortunately, this is usually technically impossible. Science is seldom able to resolve complex issues completely, but only with in a range of uncertainty, which can sometimes be very large.

In these cases the additional studies accomplish little more than delaying decisions and resolution of the dispute. This in turn, results in the continuation of existing policies and actions which are often clearly worse than the other options being considered by decision makers and disputants.

For example, in the United States, we keep looking for a risk free way of disposing of the waste from nuclear power plants. As a result, we conduct study after study while the waste that has already been generated is stored near large cities under conditions which everyone regards as unsafe.

http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/problem/aparals.htm

The actual consequence of insisting on omniscience and delaying decisions is that states and activities that all the parties involved consider less than optimal or even undesirable, persist.

 

[wynn]

I don't think your so dense not to get what I am saying, I think you are avoiding it because you know where it leads. So instead, you would rather just dance around it.

I think there are many epistemological problems that you conveniently turn a blind eye and deaf ear to.

Right, again if only I would try harder to accept that which has no justification for belief and replace reality with the creation story of your choice. Great.

Why would you try that? Do you feel that I am inviting or even forcing you to believe in God or to accept religious texts as true?

I did for those who believe. In other words. You have no justification for the belief based upon the religious texts. You only have faith there is a god.

I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true.

There is no evidence, so all that is left is faith. It should be good enough because that is all you got. Right.

Enough for whom?

 

[jpappl]

“ Originally Posted by jpappl
I don't think your so dense not to get what I am saying, I think you are avoiding it because you know where it leads. So instead, you would rather just dance around it. ”

I think there are many epistemological problems that you conveniently turn a blind eye and deaf ear to.

Examples please.

Why would you try that? Do you feel that I am inviting or even forcing you to believe in God or to accept religious texts as true?

Your suggesting that I am not trying hard enough, and if I did that I would see things differently.

“ I did for those who believe. In other words. You have no justification for the belief based upon the religious texts. You only have faith there is a god. ”

I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true.

Well I can see your religious values are in full bloom.

“ There is no evidence, so all that is left is faith. It should be good enough because that is all you got. Right. ”

Enough for whom?

You and your god.

 

[jpappl]

Signal,

So in all of this:

I think it is often implied that the only valid standard for "making an informed decision" is omniscience. That one couldn't "make an informed decision" about God unless one is actually omniscient and knows all the ins and outs of deciding about God in any way.
(There is also the notion that all faith is blind.)

But such a standard is simply not realistic ... And then some admit that and conclude that we "just can't decide about (whether to believe in or put our faith in) God".

"I can't and I won't decide unless I have the certainty that my decision will be the best one possible. Without such a certainty, I will not make any decision at all."

Have you applied what does not fit into your reason for believing.

To make a dscision are you only using the information that supports the desire to believe or do you include that information which goes against that proclaimed in the texts. In other words, are you being truly honest with yourself and open to the idea that you may in fact be wrong.

 

[wynn]

I think there are many epistemological problems that you conveniently turn a blind eye and deaf ear to.

Examples please.

You keep bringing up the example of seeing an apple and knowing it is there.
You accept 19th century science as the norm.

Why would you try that? Do you feel that I am inviting or even forcing you to believe in God or to accept religious texts as true?

Your suggesting that I am not trying hard enough, and if I did that I would see things differently.

What do you think is wrong with my suggesting that?

I did for those who believe. In other words. You have no justification for the belief based upon the religious texts. You only have faith there is a god.

I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true.

Well I can see your religious values are in full bloom.

What do you mean by that?

There is no evidence, so all that is left is faith. It should be good enough because that is all you got. Right.

Enough for whom?

You and your god.

So what is that to you, if something is good enough for a person and "their God"?

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

I think it is often implied that the only valid standard for "making an informed decision" is omniscience. That one couldn't "make an informed decision" about God unless one is actually omniscient and knows all the ins and outs of deciding about God in any way.

You already know all that you can possibly know about God....nothing. The faithful and the skeptics all share this cornucopia of divine knowledge.

 

[wynn]

Signal,

So in all of this:


Have you applied what does not fit into your reason for believing.

To make a dscision are you only using the information that supports the desire to believe or do you include that information which goes against that proclaimed in the texts. In other words, are you being truly honest with yourself and open to the idea that you may in fact be wrong.

Sure.

 

[jpappl]

You keep bringing up the example of seeing an apple and knowing it is there.
You accept 19th century science as the norm.

No, your missing the point. I set a baseline for evidence of something that is known. I used it as a jump off point to discuss how changes to the situation effect our claims of knowledge.

In the end, a similar process is used for our beliefs and claims of knowledge.

What is the justification for the belief.

Your suggesting that I am not trying hard enough, and if I did that I would see things differently. ”

What do you think is wrong with my suggesting that?

Because it doesn't change the information being reviewed.

I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true. ”

Well I can see your religious values are in full bloom. ”

What do you mean by that?

Well you don't see that what you saying is that in your opinion I am a worthless human.

So what is that to you, if something is good enough for a person and "their God"?

I have no problem with people having faith in god. That's between them and their god.

 

[wynn]

No, your missing the point. I set a baseline for evidence of something that is known. I used it as a jump off point to discuss how changes to the situation effect our claims of knowledge.

In the end, a similar process is used for our beliefs and claims of knowledge.

What is the justification for the belief.

What is the justification for the justification?

Well you don't see that what you saying is that in your opinion I am a worthless human.

You said that.

I have no problem with people having faith in god. That's between them and their god.

But you do have a problem when someone says something that you interpret to mean that they are saying you are a "worthelss human"?

 

[jpappl]

“ Originally Posted by jpappl
No, your missing the point. I set a baseline for evidence of something that is known. I used it as a jump off point to discuss how changes to the situation effect our claims of knowledge.

In the end, a similar process is used for our beliefs and claims of knowledge.

What is the justification for the belief. ”

What is the justification for the justification?

Are you suggesting that the certainty of the apple existing is in question ?

“ Well you don't see that what you saying is that in your opinion I am a worthless human. ”

You said that.

Uh, no. You did. Here:

"I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true."

“ I have no problem with people having faith in god. That's between them and their god. ”

But you do have a problem when someone says something that you interpret to mean that they are saying you are a "worthelss human"?

Yep. It is clear that you have found my questions and responses troubling and are resorting to personal insults.

I am amazed at how people from all sides when confronted with questions that challenge their world view aren't grown up enough to just say, you might be right or I hadn't thought about it that way or I don't have all the answers or I don't know.

Here, I'll be first. I don't have all the answers.

If you only like answers that conform to your belief system then stop asking questions.

 

[wynn]

Are you suggesting that the certainty of the apple existing is in question ?

Yes, and the other thing in question is how we know there is an apple and so on - like how do we know we know anything.

Well you don't see that what you saying is that in your opinion I am a worthless human.

You said that.

Uh, no. You did. Here:

"I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true."

So
"I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true."
equals
"You are a worthless human" -?

How on earth do you figure that?? But perhaps there was a misunderstanding?

Let's recap:

You said:

I did for those who believe. In other words. You have no justification for the belief based upon the religious texts. You only have faith there is a god.

to which I replied:

I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true.

I basically just repeated after you, agreeing with you, and further specifying saying how you and people like you would not accept any justification I might offer for my belief in God.

How does that equal calling you a "worthless human"?

Yep. It is clear that you have found my questions and responses troubling and are resorting to personal insults.

I am amazed at how people from all sides when confronted with questions that challenge their world view aren't grown up enough to just say, you might be right or I hadn't thought about it that way or I don't have all the answers or I don't know.

Here, I'll be first. I don't have all the answers.

If you only like answers that conform to your belief system then stop asking questions.

Well, I'd say you have just described yourself quite well there, projecting onto me like that.

 

[jpappl]

“ Originally Posted by jpappl
Are you suggesting that the certainty of the apple existing is in question ? ”

Yes, and the other thing in question is how we know there is an apple and so on - like how do we know we know anything.



“ “ “ “ Well you don't see that what you saying is that in your opinion I am a worthless human. ”

You said that. ”

Uh, no. You did. Here: ”

"I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true." ”

So
"I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true."
equals
"You are a worthless human" -?

How on earth do you figure that?? But perhaps there was a misunderstanding?

Let's recap:

You said:


“ I did for those who believe. In other words. You have no justification for the belief based upon the religious texts. You only have faith there is a god. ”

to which I replied:


“ I have no justification for you and people like you, that much is of course true. ”

I basically just repeated after you, agreeing with you, and further specifying saying how you and people like you would not accept any justification I might offer for my belief in God.

How does that equal calling you a "worthless human"?

Ok, I see where I misunderstood. I saw it as "I don't see any justification for people like you" as I don't see any reason to keep you and people like you around.

So lets move on. No worries on my end.

 

[jpappl]

“ Originally Posted by jpappl
Are you suggesting that the certainty of the apple existing is in question ? ”

Yes, and the other thing in question is how we know there is an apple and so on - like how do we know we know anything.

Ok, so to be clear. If I had an apple in my hand and you were in front of me. You could reach out pick it up, hold it, smell it, taste it etc. Even at that point you question the certainty it is an apple ?

Yep. It is clear that you have found my questions and responses troubling and are resorting to personal insults.

I am amazed at how people from all sides when confronted with questions that challenge their world view aren't grown up enough to just say, you might be right or I hadn't thought about it that way or I don't have all the answers or I don't know.

Here, I'll be first. I don't have all the answers.

If you only like answers that conform to your belief system then stop asking questions. ”

Well, I'd say you have just described yourself quite well there, projecting onto me like that.

Which was caused by the mis-understanding. I was also trying to be very general in my statement.

It is not in my intent to insult or question who you are as a person.

But I do find on the forum too often when pressed people decide they don't want to answer and ask questions anymore and resort to name calling. Usually when they don't like where the conversation is going.

I felt you were resorting to that and I apologize for the mis-understanding.

 

[lightgigantic]

Signal

I think this is something many of us struggle with - this underlying notion that merely by reading, one cannot make an informed decision, especially not when it comes to issues about God.

I think it is often implied that the only valid standard for "making an informed decision" is omniscience. That one couldn't "make an informed decision" about God unless one is actually omniscient and knows all the ins and outs of deciding about God in any way.
(There is also the notion that all faith is blind.)

basically if one insists on knowing god via empiricism, there is a requirement that the person is omniscient and omnipotent (IOW the only way to isolate an omniscient entity and analyze the potencies of an omnipotent personality in a controlled environment is for the performer to be omniscient and omnipotent)

Seeing the impossibility of this, the material reductionist labels god an impossibility (based on their own short comings)

But such a standard is simply not realistic ... And then some admit that and conclude that we "just can't decide about (whether to believe in or put our faith in) God".

"I can't and I won't decide unless I have the certainty that my decision will be the best one possible. Without such a certainty, I will not make any decision at all."

There is even a formalized argument for agnosticism to this effect:

If a person applied such a stringent means to all knowable things, they wouldn't even have the means to get out of bed or cross the road.

The reality is that very real needs present themselves, and a person is prepared to act according to whatever knowledge they have at hand.

For instance, a person will cross the road to buy food at a shop, even thought there is no certainty that they will not get hit by a car, simply because the need of eating is there.

This brings us back to the question of essential needs, which can be summed up as annomaya, pranamaya etc etc

The actual consequence of insisting on omniscience and delaying decisions is that states and activities that all the parties involved consider less than optimal or even undesirable, persist.

meanwhile its okay to sink tens of billions of dollars into space exploration
:shrug:

(IOW clearly there are some values at work that are shaping things aside from mere "unknowability")

 

[wynn]

Ok, so to be clear. If I had an apple in my hand and you were in front of me. You could reach out pick it up, hold it, smell it, taste it etc. Even at that point you question the certainty it is an apple ?

For practical purposes, this sort of certainty tends to be enough. But there are a lot of things taken for granted in this sort of certainty (e.g. that one's eyes work fine and are a reliable source of knowledge, that one has had adequate social conditioning to learn what "apple" refers to, that there is faith that none of the persons involved has fraudulent intentions ...).

As everyday life shows, we make a lot of mistakes when we use our senses - stub our toes, hit things we shouldn't hit, miss things we shouldn't miss, don't remember things precisely ... In psychology, there is a vast amount of research done on how our senses are not reliable - from experiments with optical illusions to how memories can be altered by suggestive questions.
In the court of law, eyewitness report is not automatically considered reliable evidence.

So questions of knowledge eventually come to the point of asking "How do we know we know? How can we be sure?" Hence the vast and complex field of epistemology ...

 

[wynn]

basically if one insists on knowing god via empiricism, there is a requirement that the person is omniscient and omnipotent (IOW the only way to isolate an omniscient entity and analyze the potencies of an omnipotent personality in a controlled environment is for the performer to be omniscient and omnipotent)

Which suggests why even becoming enlightened (in the Buddhist sense) would not help as far as trying to independently gain knowledge of God goes.

If a person applied such a stringent means to all knowable things, they wouldn't even have the means to get out of bed or cross the road.

Exactly.

Although one thing that many people do is to delay their decisions so that circumstances sharpen to a point where the options are few and clear, or where there seems to be only one course of action left, so it seems like no decision needs to be made.

The reality is that very real needs present themselves, and a person is prepared to act according to whatever knowledge they have at hand.

For instance, a person will cross the road to buy food at a shop, even thought there is no certainty that they will not get hit by a car, simply because the need of eating is there.

This brings us back to the question of essential needs, which can be summed up as annomaya, pranamaya etc etc

There probably is not much point in trying to explain the particular needs that come with one stage to someone on a lesser stage, is there?

meanwhile its okay to sink tens of billions of dollars into space exploration

Or spend endless hours watching soccer games or on other triflesome pursuits ... because "it's better not to decide at all than to decide and make a mistake".



P.S.
I just wanted to let you know that I have replied to your other replies to me.

 

[jpappl]

Signal,

“ Originally Posted by jpappl
Ok, so to be clear. If I had an apple in my hand and you were in front of me. You could reach out pick it up, hold it, smell it, taste it etc. Even at that point you question the certainty it is an apple ? ”

For practical purposes, this sort of certainty tends to be enough

Yes and that is all I was trying to show with the example. We can add all sorts of variables that would then have an affect on the level of certainty we can have about it's existence.

As everyday life shows, we make a lot of mistakes when we use our senses - stub our toes, hit things we shouldn't hit, miss things we shouldn't miss, don't remember things precisely ... In psychology, there is a vast amount of research done on how our senses are not reliable - from experiments with optical illusions to how memories can be altered by suggestive questions.
In the court of law, eyewitness report is not automatically considered reliable evidence.

So questions of knowledge eventually come to the point of asking "How do we know we know? How can we be sure?" Hence the vast and complex field of epistemology ...

Right, but we would drive ourselves insane if we contemplated all of this about the existence of an apple being held in your hand.

If we are willing to suspend what is clearly known to us, then we (meaning all of us ) might as well not have any conversations or discuss anything because it is a moot point. Because nothing is truly known to be real.

I don't buy into that.

I think there are things we know, things we will know but do not now, and things that we may never know, certainly not in our lifetimes anyway.

 

[wynn]

Right, but we would drive ourselves insane if we contemplated all of this about the existence of an apple being held in your hand.

If we are willing to suspend what is clearly known to us, then we (meaning all of us ) might as well not have any conversations or discuss anything because it is a moot point. Because nothing is truly known to be real.

I don't buy into that.

I think there are things we know, things we will know but do not now, and things that we may never know, certainly not in our lifetimes anyway.

Sure. Now the question is how you classify these things into these groups and by what criteria.

 

[swarm]

You keep bringing up the example of seeing an apple and knowing it is there.

So what are you suggesting as the alternative here.