Why Christ is the Son of God.

[Gordon]

Ah, just the man....You argue that resurrection never happens.......what about the Conservatives in Scotland?

Now that is disturbing.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

In terms of what we are discussing here, it means a confidence in something you experience and believe to be real, rather than know to be real.

Faith isn't a bad word, Vlad. I have faith in all kinds of things. Without faith there would be no relationships, no trust, no friendships, no love. It's actually quite lovely. I don't get why you want to shoehorn knowledge in where it isn't necessary.

Fine, and of course my next question................................ what do YOU mean by knowledge?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Now that is disturbing.

Will you be blaming Burke and Hare this time?

[Rhiannon]

Fine, and of course my next question................................ what do YOU mean by knowledge?

Vlad, I've been on your side of the fence. I have experienced how real it feels to the point where it feels as real as the earth beneath your feet. But 'God' isn't demonstrable or proveable. To have knowledge of God it has to be verifiable and testable and stand up to scrutiny. Otherwise what you have is faith.

[Gordon]

Will you be blaming Burke and Hare this time?

Please don't dig them up

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Please don't dig them up

It's a grave situation.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad, I've been on your side of the fence. I have experienced how real it feels to the point where it feels as real as the earth beneath your feet. But 'God' isn't demonstrable or proveable. To have knowledge of God it has to be verifiable and testable and stand up to scrutiny. Otherwise what you have is faith.

What do you mean by demonstrable?

[Rhiannon]

It means that it can be demonstrated, Vlad.

Feel free to demonstrate God for me.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It means that it can be demonstrated, Vlad.

So demonstrated means demonstrated then?..........Is that even a proper answer?You don't seem to be able to explain this socratically.

[Rhiannon]

So demonstrated means demonstrated then?..........Is that even a proper answer?You don't seem to be able to explain this socratically.

That wasn't what you asked, was it?

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

This isn't the plainest English I have ever encountered so you'll have to excuse me if I have got the wrong end of the stick.

Let me lay my cards on the table.I am not bound by terms which are philosophically naturalistic....and neither are you.........got that?

No has said that we are have they? However, just because we say that anything might be possible it doesn't mean everything becomes fair game. Things have to be ruled in not the other way around. So just by saying that anything might be possible moves you not an iota of a nanometer closer to demonstrating God.

 Good so now we may proceed. The key word is encounter. That a thing is establishes its ontology. Not that it can be reasoned into existence.

I think what you are saying here is that something either exists or it doesn't independent of our ability to show it does by reasoning.

If that is what you meant then obviously it is true. However, again so what?

What we need then is a way of determining whether these things exist or not.

When one encounters God one is neither encountering a stone or an intellectual theory, rather God is disturbing you. A stone disturbs, theory may disturb but it is not the disturbance but what causes the disturbance.

There are multiple ways of checking a claim that you have encountered a rock, there are zero ways of checking a claim that you have encountered God.

Given that there are now fewer alternatives to counter the reality of God. Bluehillside knows this and makes frequent recourse to it.............The counter argument is that the encounter is due to brain abérration. At which point we know the kind of thing he is alluding to ....and it doesn't fit the bill.

Hillside is condemned to shoehorning stuff.

All I think is being said is how do you know that you have correctly attributed the cause of your experience of God to an actual encounter with God.

You are saying that you have an experience. (you told us about it on another thread).

That this experience fits the Christian Narrative (a few posts back).

Therefore, your experience of God is caused by an encounter with the Christian God.

The elephant in the room thought is that there is no reason to believe that the Christian narrative is correct. We can't point to a single verifiable encounter with an actual God. In order for you reasoning to have even anything approaching explanatory power you first have to assume that the Cristian God exists and can be experienced.

[Stranger]

Let me lay my cards on the table.I am not bound by terms which are philosophically naturalistic....and neither are you.........got that? Good so now we may proceed. The key word is encounter. That a thing is establishes its ontology. Not that it can be reasoned into existence.

When one encounters God one is neither encountering a stone or an intellectual theory, rather God is disturbing you. A stone disturbs, theory may disturb but it is not the disturbance but what causes the disturbance.

Given that there are now fewer alternatives to counter the reality of God. Bluehillside knows this and makes frequent recourse to it.............The counter argument is that the encounter is due to brain abérration. At which point we know the kind of thing he is alluding to ....and it doesn't fit the bill.

The trouble (well part of the trouble) with that is that the there is an abondance of people in the world claiming that they have encountered something or other. Not only a vast menagerie of different gods but angels, devils, demons, ghosts, aliens and so on.

So, in effect, you are asking us the believe that you, and the other devotees of whatever species of Christian god you think correct, are the only ones who've got it right and ... what? Everybody else has not had a genuine experience? They have misinterpreted it? They have have had a "brain aberration"?

While "aberration" is not a term I would use for a profound experience that might be interpreted as religious; how do you know that an "aberration" doesn't "fit the bill"? Have you experienced every sort of possible "aberration"?

All that before we get on the absurdity of an omnipotent god (is your species of Christian god omnipotent?) attempting to communicate important messages only though unverifiable personal experiences that get lost amongst all the noise of other experiences and/or are often misinterpreted.

Hillside is condemned to shoehorning stuff.

I suggest you are in need of a far bigger shoehorn than blue.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

That wasn't what you asked, was it?

Ok since your definition of knowledge seems to be impervious to socratic dialogue and in need of defence, at the moment. Let's explore using mine.

Let's start with the thesis that knowledge is what each one of us knows, first hand.
What does that then exclude as knowledge?
That which is acquired at second hand.
Where does that leave scientific knowledge?
Only those things within science that we know ourselves at first hand.
How much of science do we know first hand?
Not a lot.
Inference, we believe most of science and trust scientist and other scientists trust other scientist and what is termed as scientific Knowledge is not in fact knowledge but trusting.

Are results obtained by scientific instrumentation ''Knowledge''.
We do not experience neutrino penetration, for instance, so this comes to us second hand.
Inference. actual knowledge is received from equipment is questionable as knowledge. Rather we trust our equipment.

general inference. The only real scientific knowledge we can claim is what we gain empirically ourselves rather than second hand and instrumentally.

General inference. It may be only empirical knowledge experienced ourselves that can be claimed as knowledge.

General Inference. The only corporate knowledge that can be classed as knowledge as holdable is that which is agreed on by all.

General inference. We still have the issue that this only established
by individual experience, in other words, second hand knowledge is unacceptable.

General issue. Not everyone is competent to carry out or interpret all experimentation.

General inference. Scientific knowledge as stands depends on individual experience, agreed experience and trust.

General observation. Religion depends on individual experience, agreed experience and trust.

Final word. These points have of course been made by scientists who also write about religious experience and Polkinghorne, I would say is the go to author on this.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

This isn't the plainest English I have ever encountered so you'll have to excuse me if I have got the wrong end of the stick.

No has said that we are have they? However, just because we say that anything might be possible it doesn't mean everything becomes fair game. Things have to be ruled in not the other way around. So just by saying that anything might be possible moves you not an iota of a nanometer closer to demonstrating God.

I think what you are saying here is that something either exists or it doesn't independent of our ability to show it does by reasoning.

If that is what you meant then obviously it is true. However, again so what?

What we need then is a way of determining whether these things exist or not.


There are multiple ways of checking a claim that you have encountered a rock, there are zero ways of checking a claim that you have encountered God.

All I think is being said is how do you know that you have correctly attributed the cause of your experience of God to an actual encounter with God.

You are saying that you have an experience. (you told us about it on another thread).

That this experience fits the Christian Narrative (a few posts back).

Therefore, your experience of God is caused by an encounter with the Christian God.

The elephant in the room thought is that there is no reason to believe that the Christian narrative is correct. We can't point to a single verifiable encounter with an actual God. In order for you reasoning to have even anything approaching explanatory power you first have to assume that the Cristian God exists and can be experienced.

Put simply Stephen, living in a secular society blessed with people like Dawkins, Hitchins and the four horseman and my own experience as a non believer. I have the foreland and hinterland of ideas and theories to challenge my interpretation and none of them have so far dented my interpretation of what I experience spiritually and what and who I am in spiritual terms.

To what then do I put the failure of the neh sayers down to?
Basically all I feel I am getting is ''we don't know what it is you have but we know it isn't God'' which is not a good argument I think you will agree.
Secondly it is a defence of ignorance.

For your final question. You seem to be saying you have to be able to explain and comprehensively understand something before you can experience and that is as they say,seriously ''arse about face''.

[Shaker]

Basically all I feel I am getting is ''we don't know what it is you have but we know it isn't God'' which is not a good argument I think you will agree.

Seems a perfectly sound argument to me not to draft in as a pseudo-explanatory principle something without cogent definition whose acolytes can't even offer a methodology for being made aware of its existence. "Don't know - let's keep investigating" demonstrates intellectual humility; "it just happens to be my preferred interpretation of just one of the thousands of gods on offer" is the opposite of that.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The trouble (well part of the trouble) with that is that the there is an abondance of people in the world claiming that they have encountered something or other. Not only a vast menagerie of different gods but angels, devils, demons, ghosts, aliens and so on.

So, in effect, you are asking us the believe that you, and the other devotees of whatever species of Christian god you think correct, are the only ones who've got it right and ... what? Everybody else has not had a genuine experience? They have misinterpreted it? They have have had a "brain aberration"?

While "aberration" is not a term I would use for a profound experience that might be interpreted as religious; how do you know that an "aberration" doesn't "fit the bill"? Have you experienced every sort of possible "aberration"?

All that before we get on the absurdity of an omnipotent god (is your species of Christian god omnipotent?) attempting to communicate important messages only though unverifiable personal experiences that get lost amongst all the noise of other experiences and/or are often misinterpreted.

I suggest you are in need of a far bigger shoehorn than blue.

Let me gather up your ideas and answer the gathering as it were.
You talk of a world experiencing that which doesn't seem to be covered by the uniformity of science. Do you now go down the line of empiricism?
How then can a whole world be an aberration? Isn't it statistically more correct to say that it is non experience which is the aberration?

Or we could take the epidemiological approach and say these experiences are an infestation, a pandemic in which there are only a few immune? If you go down this line then what warrant do you have for doing so?

[Rhiannon]

What do you mean by demonstrable?

Just to remind you that this was what you actually asked, Vlad.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Seems a perfectly sound argument to me not to draft in as a pseudo-explanatory principle something without cogent definition whose acolytes can't even offer a methodology for being made aware of its existence. "Don't know - let's keep investigating" demonstrates intellectual humility; "it just happens to be my preferred interpretation of just one of the thousands of gods on offer" is the opposite of that.

Look, I've spent a lot of time painstakingly and sensitively handling peoples posts and answering them in what is hopefully a sensitive and respectful manner so do you think you can just fuck off thank you?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Just to remind you that this was what you actually asked, Vlad.

OK have you read my response yet it is the long one in response to your post?

[Rhiannon]

OK have you read my response yet it is the long one in response to your post?

Yes, I have. It falls apart with 'knowledge is what we know first hand' and vanishes completely with a mention of Polkinghorne - who I have read, btw.

But then I've just seen you throwing your toys out of the pram in response to a reasonable post from Shaker so I'm not sure how much point remains in discussing this with you. Never mind.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Seems a perfectly sound argument to me not to draft in as a pseudo-explanatory principle something without cogent definition whose acolytes can't even offer a methodology for being made aware of its existence. "Don't know - let's keep investigating" demonstrates intellectual humility; "it just happens to be my preferred interpretation of just one of the thousands of gods on offer" is the opposite of that.

All right Shaker, I apologise for my previous bit of fun where I asked you to F off while I was trying to be sensitive.

It is not sound to say we don't know, supposedly investigate but dogmatically stick to a method which from the outset isn't possibly going to be able to say anything about the question.

In other words Shaker you just end up defending ignorance.

Now...can you just fuck off?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yes, I have. It falls apart with 'knowledge is what we know first hand' and vanishes completely with a mention of Polkinghorne - who I have read, btw.

But then I've just seen you throwing your toys out of the pram in response to a reasonable post from Shaker so I'm not sure how much point remains in discussing this with you. Never mind.

I'm afraid you obviously lack ironical humour.

I have answered Shaker seriously in another post.

[Rhiannon]

Oh, right, the old 'can't you take a joke?' shit.

[Shaker]

It is not sound to say we don't know, supposedly investigate but dogmatically stick to a method which from the outset isn't possibly going to be able to say anything about the question.

Nothing dogmatic about it, Vlad.

You either have a method that's accurate, reliable and consistent, or you don't. It's that simple.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Put simply Stephen, living in a secular society blessed with people like Dawkins, Hitchins and the four horseman and my own experience as a non believer. I have the foreland and hinterland of ideas and theories to challenge my interpretation and none of them have so far dented my interpretation of what I experience spiritually and what and who I am in spiritual terms.

I have never doubted the sincerity of your belief. But effectively it boils down to, I am personally convinced.

To what then do I put the failure of the neh sayers down to?
Basically all I feel I am getting is ''we don't know what it is you have but we know it isn't God'' which is not a good argument I think you will agree.

No. You make a claim and you have been unable to show us why we should take you claim to have correctly ascribed the cause to an objective God.  That's all it is.

Secondly it is a defence of ignorance.

No it's an approach to avoiding believing to be true things which have not been demonstrated to be so.

For your final question. You seem to be saying you have to be able to explain and comprehensively understand something before you can experience and that is as they say,seriously ''arse about face''.

No that's not what I said.

In ascribing the Christian God as the cause of your experience you are assuming the Christian narrative is correct.

That people throughout history have also claimed to experience God in the same way that you have is no evidence as to the existence of that God.