KimberlyAnn Moves to Delphi...

[_Jersey Girl]

JAK really needs to throw in here. He's much better at it than I am and besides that, I so go unnoticed.

Jersey Girl

*whining*

[_Yong Xi]

I believe that someone can be convinced of something and act as though they, in fact, have certainty. That doesn't mean they are correct, however.

I recall coming out of the testing center at BYU after taking an exam for a statistics class knowing that I had answered at least 48 out of 50 questions correct. I was so certain that I would have bet money on it. When I got the test results back, I was correct. However, the two questions I missed were questions I was 100% certain I had answered correctly. I was wrong and yet I was so certain.

If Coggins wants to maintain that he knows that God exists, I have no problem with that. What remains is to determine whether what he knows is, indeed, fact.

[_KimberlyAnn]

Coggins, if you think you can know with a perfect certainty that God exists, that Jesus is the Christ and that the Mormon church is what it claims to be, then you are the one who's been sniffing gas from the navel of the earth and fallen into a trance, though you wouldn't make nearly the attractive oracle that I would. You may be less squeamish about sifting through the intestines of a freshly mutilated goat, however.

The idea that you can know with perfect certainty any of the things you claimed is patently absurd. I should enquirer about how you know with a perfect certainty that God exists. Is it through prayer? Feelings? Visions? A burning bosom? You see, Coggins, those are not reliable evidence. People all over the world use feelings, prayer, visions, prophesy and the like as evidence of all kinds of things, many of them to show their perfect certainty that Mohammad was a true prophet. Others claim to know with perfect certainty that Scientology is true. Do you doubt their certain knowledge? I sure as heck do, the same way I doubt yours.

I have no problem with people claiming to believe in God. I do not know that God does not exist, but I have no evidence that He does. For some irrational reason, I hold out hope that a divine being does exist to somehow right the wrongs for people He would not help while they were here on this earth, suffering. Strange, I know. But no one should take the claim of a perfect knowledge of God's existence with any amount of seriousness. The fact is that no human can know God exists, Coggins. If you knew, you'd have no need for faith, right?

Faith, hope, and belief in God are common. A sure, certain knowledge is an extraordinary claim that can be dismissed as wacky.

KA

[_Jersey Girl]

Loran

Now this is a very interesting proposition. KimberlyAnn knows that I do not know that, just to take one point of several mentioned, there is a God.

What evidence do you have to offer that God exists, Loran, that cannot be attributed to chance, coincidence or simple subjectivity?

Jersey Girl

[_Coggins7]

Coggins, if KimberlyAnn cannot know that you don't know about God, Jesus, Joseph Smith, etc. etc. how is it that so many LDS KNOW what will make everyone else in the world happy? (I'm assuming that this is something that you also KNOW, although I'm open to correction on this point.) How is it that you can KNOW that I will never receive a "fulness" of joy unless I accept the precepts of your church?

The kind of post-modern, radical scepticism which you are marshalling for the sake of this thread is not ultimately the church's friend.

I'm marshaling nothing of the kind. My philosophical response to your initial post is strictly a logical exploration of the implications of your own propositions. It comes from no philosophical school but is simply an application of critical reasoning to the assertions you made in the post I responded to.

It is, indeed, your own post modern, radical nihilistic subjectivism I'm responding to by trying to make explicit the philosophical box canyon your positions here put you in.

[_Coggins7]

Coggins, if you think you can know with a perfect certainty that God exists, that Jesus is the Christ and that the Mormon church is what it claims to be, then you are the one who's been sniffing gas from the navel of the earth and fallen into a trance

This would make a fine plot for an R rated direct to video horror flick...

though you wouldn't make nearly the attractive oracle that I would. You may be less squeamish about sifting through the intestines of a freshly mutilated goat, however.

Quenten Tarrantino to direct, special effects by Tom Savini...

The idea that you can know with perfect certainty any of the things you claimed is patently absurd.

I'm casting the runes even as you type...

I should enquirer about how you know with a perfect certainty that God exists. Is it through prayer? Feelings? Visions? A burning bosom?

I think it best to keep the burning bosom out... that might bump the R rating up to "unrated".

You see, Coggins, those are not reliable evidence. People all over the world use feelings, prayer, visions, prophesy and the like as evidence of all kinds of things, many of them to show their perfect certainty that Mohammad was a true prophet. Others claim to know with perfect certainty that Scientology is true. Do you doubt their certain knowledge? I sure as heck do, the same way I doubt yours.

No, I don't think its the same kind of doubt at all.

I have no problem with people claiming to believe in God. I do not know that God does not exist, but I have no evidence that He does.

Which tells you nothing whatsoever about what others may or may not know.

For some irrational reason, I hold out hope that a divine being does exist to somehow right the wrongs for people He would not help while they were here on this earth, suffering. Strange, I know. But no one should take the claim of a perfect knowledge of God's existence with any amount of seriousness. The fact is that no human can know God exists, Coggins. If you knew, you'd have no need for faith, right?

Faith, hope, and belief in God are common. A sure, certain knowledge is an extraordinary claim that can be dismissed as wacky.

Now, perhaps you would explore with me the philosophical problems with your position here as I outlined in my initial response to you?

[_Coggins7]

What evidence do you have to offer that God exists, Loran, that cannot be attributed to chance, coincidence or simple subjectivity?

What would count for you as evidence?

[_Jersey Girl]

What evidence do you have to offer that God exists, Loran, that cannot be attributed to chance, coincidence or simple subjectivity?

What would count for you as evidence?

I already qualified that, Loran. Anything that cannot be attributed to chance, coincidence or simple subjectivity. That would be a good start, I think.

[_Canucklehead]

You are trapped in a nihilistic rat maze from which there is no escape from endless logical bottlenecks.

If you really take what you have claimed here seriously, them you cannot in any sense make any claims about what knowledge I claim to have about God, since you have already admitted that what you claim to be knowledge about my knowledge may not be knowledge at all, but a creation of your subjective mind.

No, I am not "trapped in a nihilistic rat maze", but thanks for the compliment.

Look, what I am talking about here isn't anything other than the insights of Descartes and his radical scepticism. I'm not an expert on Descartes, and I don't have advanced degrees in philosophy, but I'm fairly certain (only a small amount of irony intended) that I have a good grasp of what he is saying. Descartes started out discarding any knowledge which was possible to doubt. That included the entirety of the outside world, all of his sensory experiences, everything except the cogito: cogito ergo sum. The only thing which Descartes couldn't doubt was that he exists as an entity.

Now, after this, Descartes went about reconstructing his knowledge of the entire world (more or less successfully) based on reasonable assumptions. Of course, reasonable assumptions are not the same thing as absolute knowledge.

What I am saying is that, like Descartes, we ALL operate under our own reasonable assumptions. It's pretty impossible to be a radical sceptic and to live life in any way. But, we have to recognise that everything we do is based only on our best assumptions and logic, and not be dogmatic about the world.

Now, it is true that you could be a figment of my subjective imagination (and when interacting "virtually" over internet message boards, that's not something which is difficult to imagine). However, if you were a figment of my imagination, you couldn't really have any more certain knowledge about things than I do, what with my having created you. However, it is reasonable for me to assume that other people do truly exist somewhere; the best evidence that I can think of is that people often disagree with me and present ideas which I would never have come up with on my own (sometimes ideas that I can only vaguely comprehend). Now, it's entirely possible that my subconscious mind is just coming up with things which my conscious mind isn't. It's possible, but I don't think that it's likely. It's also reasonable for me to assume that most other people are pretty similar to me - that they have relatively close to the same mental capacity as me, and that they have fairly similar experiences to mine. It's not impossible that I'm a complete intellectual midget who is completely missing out on the kinds of experiences that other people have, but I don't think that it's likely (after all, I have degrees from some pretty damn good universities, and a very respectable GPA to boot ;) ). Now, if these assumptions are correct, then parts of the LDS belief system DO seem fairly arrogant (as I have argued).

So, you see, I'm not really trapped in some nihilistic limbo. But at the same time, I'm not dogmatic or arrogant enough to think that I've got the great plan of the universe nailed down "beyond a shadow of a doubt".

[_Coggins7]

You are trapped in a nihilistic rat maze from which there is no escape from endless logical bottlenecks.

If you really take what you have claimed here seriously, them you cannot in any sense make any claims about what knowledge I claim to have about God, since you have already admitted that what you claim to be knowledge about my knowledge may not be knowledge at all, but a creation of your subjective mind.

No, I am not "trapped in a nihilistic rat maze", but thanks for the compliment.

Look, what I am talking about here isn't anything other than the insights of Descartes and his radical scepticism. I'm not an expert on Descartes, and I don't have advanced degrees in philosophy, but I'm fairly certain (only a small amount of irony intended) that I have a good grasp of what he is saying. Descartes started out discarding any knowledge which was possible to doubt. That included the entirety of the outside world, all of his sensory experiences, everything except the cogito: cogito ergo sum. The only thing which Descartes couldn't doubt was that he exists as an entity.

Now, after this, Descartes went about reconstructing his knowledge of the entire world (more or less successfully) based on reasonable assumptions. Of course, reasonable assumptions are not the same thing as absolute knowledge.

What I am saying is that, like Descartes, we ALL operate under our own reasonable assumptions. It's pretty impossible to be a radical sceptic and to live life in any way. But, we have to recognise that everything we do is based only on our best assumptions and logic, and not be dogmatic about the world.

Now, it is true that you could be a figment of my subjective imagination (and when interacting "virtually" over internet message boards, that's not something which is difficult to imagine). However, if you were a figment of my imagination, you couldn't really have any more certain knowledge about things than I do, what with my having created you. However, it is reasonable for me to assume that other people do truly exist somewhere; the best evidence that I can think of is that people often disagree with me and present ideas which I would never have come up with on my own (sometimes ideas that I can only vaguely comprehend). Now, it's entirely possible that my subconscious mind is just coming up with things which my conscious mind isn't. It's possible, but I don't think that it's likely. It's also reasonable for me to assume that most other people are pretty similar to me - that they have relatively close to the same mental capacity as me, and that they have fairly similar experiences to mine. It's not impossible that I'm a complete intellectual midget who is completely missing out on the kinds of experiences that other people have, but I don't think that it's likely (after all, I have degrees from some pretty damn good universities, and a very respectable GPA to boot ;) ). Now, if these assumptions are correct, then parts of the LDS belief system DO seem fairly arrogant (as I have argued).

So, you see, I'm not really trapped in some nihilistic limbo. But at the same time, I'm not dogmatic or arrogant enough to think that I've got the great plan of the universe nailed down "beyond a shadow of a doubt".

Now, could you perhaps respond to my arguments and logical questions relative to your initial posting?