Agnostic Theism?

NO, no. Let's try and make this a bit simpler. What is involved in S knowing that p? If we say that a person knows that it is raining outside, what is a full analysis of what it means for him to "know" in this instance?

What if I wanted to know if it was raining outside, so I looked to a magic 8-ball for my answer, and the answer I recieved from it was "No." And what if it actually was raining outside at that moment. Would you say that I knew it wasn't raining outside even though it really was? Or would you say that I knew it was raining outside eventhough I believed the answer the magic 8-ball gave me?

What I am asking is what it means for S to know that p.

Also, I'm not saying that belief is prerequisite for knowledge. What I am saying is that knowledge IS belief--a case of belief that is both warrented and true.

 

How can a magic 8-ball tell you a justified absolute truth? Didn't you understand my definition?

Justification forces belief. Even false justification. For me to "know" it is raining outside. Step 1 (absolute truth): It actually has to be raining outside. Step 2 (justification): I step outside and get rained on.

Step 2 forces belief. It would be impossible for me to be standing in the rain and truly believe it's not raining (assuming a healthy mind, here). However, when I want to give my knowledge to someone else, I can't give them my belief. They form their own belief. Knowledge, in transit, doesn't carry belief.

I can text message someone, that it's raining outside. And, that message would still be knowledge, even though a phone doesn't have beliefs. I could write in a diary, that it rained today. And, that writing would still be knowledge, even though a diary doesn't have beliefs.

When we look at the Bible, there's no mega-debate as to whether the people who wrote it, actually believed what they wrote. It doesn't matter. There's a mega-debate about whether the Bible is knowledge of actual events, whether it speaks of truths, whether events described are justified by true eye witness accounts, whether we know that the writers are reliable and consistent, etc.


Peace

 

might not there also be sacredness in not claiming to know what is not known?

what occam said back there about our species very small place in a very big universe echoes my own feelings as well.

=^^=
.../\...

 

Dejavu

The prime concept being it is entirely possible for a direction
[call it god if you will] to exist behind the structure
and complexity of reality.
Massively Stable structure and complexity is a non-random state.
A product of law. Randomness operates within those states.

What verification is there to say reality is a product of
random chance?
If you propose such as chaos theory then who wrote that into reality?
Did chaos theory write itself into random chance, randomly? lol

Randomness is but one 'law'. There are many.
We say we know this and that, but we know very little.
We dont know what time is.
We dont know what gravity is
We dont know what magnetism is.
We dont know what space is.
We dont know what existed before the 'bang'
We dont know how evolution works
We dont know what conciousness is.

If we know so little about what does seem to exist
How can you possibly support the idea that you know WHAT DOES NOT.
This is pure arrogance in the face of our monumental lack of universal
perception.

When you say, there is no god, you define yourself as godlike
and all knowing which is patentently false..
For no rational human being alive can logically
claim knowledge of such.
[but a few irrational ones do]

Occam

PS..Athiests are just as encased in self inficted dogma as theists.
You both are the two sides to the coin, in a 3 dimensional world.

Agnostics live in doubt. that is our strength.
Without doubt. And routine attempted invalidation of all we believe.
Nothing is ever learned.
Theists/Atheists believe from desire. Agnostics from method.

 

Down here on earth we call that self!

As little verification as there is to say it is the product of direction.
But you know that, you're an agnostic. Let's hurry to the bit about what we desire.

I know what does not exist. That which does not exist beyond conception, that which remains in the state of conception. For example, a Sdrffghtuyk. 'God' is the same, as human a fabrication as any, and in my mind it's nothing at all. Where does your mind rank against mine, so to speak, in the end?


If you like, think of me as a great redeemer, giving back chance to all things, that they may be free to fate! lol

'God' remains undefined, and like you I may do with this word what I like. It's really a matter of taste.

lol! I envision this written in a public toilet at some university. Prove that it isn't!

Doubt can be noble, but in the history of all creators the earth has birthed, we desirers have ruled 'words' more thoroughly than believers and doubters ever have, and more to the point, what lies behind them: Thought.

We are profoundly godless and we love the most.

 

I'm doubting your statement. Aren't we all "desirers"?


Peace

 

Of course we are! Believers and doubters too.

 

Forgive me for interjecting this, especially in this thread, but Deja, you cannot propose to speak for anyone outside of your own self? Down here on earth "you" call it self! Not "we".

In the reality of it, his mind would most likely rank equal to yours, as equal to mine, as equal to everyone else that has the ability to communicate their ideas and views of reality using perception and consciousness.

...

 

If we're all desirers, that makes this...

...kind of incoherent. Not a good sign of 'word' rulership.

The doubter desires truth. Whether that's attainable, or not, is another story. I have my doubts.

What do the believers (-ists) desire?


Peace

 

Darrell:

lol

Yes I speak for myself.

Can any one mind equal another without one becoming...another?

3DJay:

Kind of, but not completely. We are all these things to varying degrees.

Believers desire that their beliefs are borne out.

 

I would say no, but you tell me... The first question was basically asking if S can know that p when p is false. The second, if S can know that p when he doesn't believe that p. Your answer to both of these appears to be no.

But I can modify the scenario if you like. What if I walked outside and it appear to me that I was getting rained on. But suppose that the past 5 times I walked outside and thought it was raining, it actually turned out to be someone playing an elaborate trick on me with sprinklers and such. And so because of this I assume the old prankster is at it again, and thus I believe that it is not really raining outside. Now, suppose it really is raining outside. Would you say that I knew it was raining outside, even though I believed otherwise? Or would you say that I knew it wasn't raining outside even though it really was raining? Given what you've said so far, I think your answer to both questions would be "no." If this is the case, then S knowing that p at least consist in him believing a true proposition. Knowledge would have to be at least true belief.

Yes

Your text message is, in all actuality, nothing more then black marks on an electronic screen, not knowledge. It is the meaning that is important, and that is not something that can be known apart from a mind, something personal, something that is able to know that meaning.

I completely get that you are trying to make "facts" exist independent of our conceptualization of them, but that is a completely different matter altogether.

Asking if the Bible IS knowledge of actual events doesn't make sense. Asking if the Bible conveys truth about actual events does. But really all you're asking is if the propositions of scripture actually correspond to particular states of affairs. If when it says a man name Moses parted the red sea, that it is conveying something that really did happen. In this case both propositions and states of affairs are known by a knower. Apart from this knower the Bible is little more then black marks on a white page. Knowledge is something that is completely personal, that is, it is known. Books don't know things.

And how you do this is by first understanding the propositions of Scripture, then comparing them in light of what others like Earl Doherty, John Loftus, Michael Martin, etc., etc., have to say. What I mean to say here is that the process is entirely personal. Propositions are known only by persons.

 

Simple water falling down, is not rain. Rain is more specifically water falling down from clouds in the sky. Your beliefs were formed on faulty justifications, both before and after.

Knowledge is not true belief, at minimum, because you can't believe in anything, without justification. Which takes us back to X = ?. Justification causes belief, even faulty justification.

If you limit knowledge to something personal, then there can be no "knowledge" (the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time). If "knowledge" is justified absolute truths, theoretically, one could create a database that contained the sum of human "knowledge". However, if "knowledge" needs to contain belief, you wouldn't call it knowledge.

What would you call it? It doesn't matter what medium, is used. I'm looking for a single definition (not words scribbled on a page, or black marks on an electronic screen) that defines knowledge, in transit. You're saying it becomes something less than knowledge. What does it become?

Bad wording, on my part. Does the Bible contain knowledge of actual events? Can a book contain knowledge?

A book would only have to know things, to contain knowledge, if you define knowledge as a belief. If knowledge is simply a justified absolute truth, then a book can contain a justified absolute truth.

Sure, even an absolute truth has to be justified to a human, before it can be human knowledge. But, what about what we called "knowledge", from our past, that ended up not being true. It was called "knowledge", based soley on belief in false justifications. It was what we believed to be justified and true. Can we still say that was "knowledge"? How can we, when we can now prove that we didn't really know. Doesn't that show that knowledge needs to be an absolute truth, before all else?

If something I simply believe to be justified and true, can, in the future, be proved not to be true, then I don't really know what I think I know.


Peace

 

DejaVu

Yes your desirers have. Ruled by the gun and by fear and hate.
For your WANT IS TO RULE.
Words and worlds.
But you seem to have blown it, for there is no 'thought' in desire.
Desire is what you want to happen, be, exist.
Irresepective of what is IS.

Thiesm WANTS its gods to be. tough
Athiesm WANTS no gods. tough

Neither theism or athiesm can justify any conclusion but that because
they WANT IT , it must be true.

You have wasted many words, thinking yourself clever, when you have done nothing but prove yourself rationally incompetant.
Want to know more?.. channel 11 ant 9pm.
[a discourse or primative belief systems... just for dejavu]



Occam

 

It's a most modest kind of ruling I assure you! A tyrrany of love! lol.

As if there is no thought in desire!

Irrespective of what is? Rubbish!

Atheism LOVES creators. Agnosticism is merely an amusing species of smugness.

I haven't proven anything of the sort. And why the hell can't you spell!? You're 47, that's old enough to be someones grandfather!

 

Thanks, Dejavu. My dictionary (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 5th ed.) does not show any such word as 'lol'.

As for 'tyrrany', the correct spelling is 'tyranny'.

'Someones' is a possessive form and should contain an apostrophe before the final 's'.

A sentence began with a conjunction such as 'and' is not grammatically correct, since one of it's references is absent.
SMGOL (splitting my guts out laughing).

 

For the lack of better words, pwned in the phace, lolz.

 

Agnosticism is smug? You realize smug means to be overconfident in one's difinitiveness. Agnostics believe they do not know the existence of God. So, you're saying they are overconfident in knowing that they don't know if God is real... Riiiiight...

You're not one to speak either, as one of your main argumental foci is the concept that you do not know God.

 

Ooooooo ... That's Gotta Hurt !!!

I think ... ? *scritch* *scritch*

 

Dirty dog,

lol. Webster. His American English is a joy to behold. Collegiates need their mommas.

DirtyDog, I care to begin sentences with 'And'. Deeply. Apostrophes for the possessive I never include, you can check all my posts.

ButTyranny you have me on! A typo. A frightfully embarrassing one. You can realize it as typo by considering whether I would really spell tyrant with two r's--

Keep on truckin'


Paintballer, go tell it on the mountain.

 

Wait just a second here, you criticize DirtyDog for not using proper grammar and spelling and now you admit to never using proper grammar yourself? Hmm, sounds a little hypocritical to me...