KimberlyAnn Moves to Delphi...

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_Coggins7
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KimberlyAnn Moves to Delphi...

Post by _Coggins7 »

Absolute balderdash! You cannot KNOW for yourself with perfect certainty that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ or that the Mormon church is what it claims to be. How exactly are you supposed to tell someone else how to know for themselves that which you don't know yourself and that which, in fact, cannot be known? Ridiculous.



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.

One must be forgiven for wondering just what mechanisms obtain here that allow anyone, even KA, to know and comprehend the contents of the minds of others. If I claim to know there is a God, most rationalists would only complain that this obviates any objective verification, and hence, is not open to confirmation by independent observers. This would be the standard empiricist problem with religious truth claims.

Now, KA claims that she has acquired absolute knowledge, in some manner, that my claim of absolute knowledge of the existence of God is in fact, a false claim. We would wish to know then, in what manner this knowledge was obtained, and how it functions; that is, how it is that the subjective contents of my mind are available to her such that an absolute claim about them can be made with certainty (a certainty that she denies to me regarding a positive claim about God's existence).

Why is absolute, certain knowledge open to her and not to me? How could she have acquired knowledge regarding my interior experiences, perceptions, and feelings?

Was it objectively acquired (in which case, since my subjective perceptions are not available for objective scrutiny, as any metaphysical materialist would agree, the means would remain obtuse)? or it this claim also subjective on her part (in which case her claim to know something regarding God or my claims to knowledge about him can be no more legitimate epistemologically than my testimony is claimed to be).

One option is that KA has a god-like mind herself, and has acquired such knowledge about my subjective perceptual world through some revelatory means. This, however, would be inconsistent with her general views regarding both the existence of god-like mental states and the likelihood of the existence of the principle of revelation.

Another is that she is projecting her own life experience-which does not include any experience with spiritual feelings, perceptions, or reception of spiritual knowledge, onto me, assuming that her experiences in this area must, for all intents and purposes, be very much like everyone else's.

The quandary is: I claim to know something others do not know and which is not directly accessible objectively. I claim to know techniques through which one can know subjectively the same things I know. KA refuses to use the techniques. There is then no subjective experience to confirm my claims.

Objectively, she cannot refute my claims to knowledge, as she must already admit that my claims to knowledge cannot be inspected in an objective way. Therefore, no analysis is possible.

Nor can she refute my claims in a subjective way, as this puts here own claims in the very same boat as mine, ie, they are purely subjective and cannot be verified rationally or empirically.

What then is really being asserted here? how can claims to knowledge be made about subjective perceptions immune to the very analysis through which such a claim could be generated?
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.


- Thomas S. Monson
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

It should probably also be asked, upon what general principle is it impossible to know with certainty that there is a God (or anything else of a similar nature) and how is this general principle known with certainty?
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.


- Thomas S. Monson
_The Nehor
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Post by _The Nehor »

Coggins7 wrote:It should probably also be asked, upon what general principle is it impossible to know with certainty that there is a God (or anything else of a similar nature) and how is this general principle known with certainty?


There is no such principle, if there is an omniscient and omnipotent God then how we meet him is entirely up to him and will be solely on his terms.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics
"I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

Which is one important point I'd like Kimberly and the other materialists here to tangle with.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.


- Thomas S. Monson
_Jersey Girl
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Post by _Jersey Girl »

Loran,

KA is correct. You can't "know" that God exists, you can sure believe it though.
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
_The Nehor
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Post by _The Nehor »

Jersey Girl wrote:Loran,

KA is correct. You can't "know" that God exists, you can sure believe it though.


I think it is possible to know God exists on the same level that you know anyone else exists. You can always fall back on the "You're a sea slug dreaming of being a human" or "Trapped in the Matrix" schools of thought but at that point you're pretty much lost anyways. How many LDS have reached that level is an open question. As with all philosophies and religions and schools of thought how much of what someone says is parrot-talk and how much is genuine is an open question that we have no way of answering.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics
"I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
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Post by _Canucklehead »

I would venture that, regardless of any personal experiences you might have had, you cannot KNOW that it was an encounter with god, just as I cannot KNOW that I'm living in a real, physical world and not merely a figment of my imagination. The only thing that we can truly KNOW is that we exist in some sense (with a nod to Descartes).

Even if you are convinced that your personal experience was with god, this in no way has any consequences for me or anyone else, unless, of course, they decide to accept your claims without requiring any reliable evidence of their own.

The reality is that we act as though we KNOW all kinds of things. Based on the evidence available to us, we make reasonable predictions about the world and reality. These assumptions are not always entirely well-founded, but, in order to carry on with life, we pretty much have to act as though we know all kinds of things. If you claim that you have had a personal experience which you interpret to be an encounter with god, that is fine with me. However, the moment you (or any other "prophet" begins to make all kinds of claims about the universe and begins to attempt to dictate to me how I should live my life, I will ask for evidence and proof. If the best that you can come up with is a testimony of your own personal experience, please forgive me if I laugh derisively.
_Canucklehead
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Post by _Canucklehead »

How many times have we heard people in the church say something to the effect of "oh they're such a nice family, if they knew the truth, they'd be so much happier" ? I know that I've personally heard it multiple times in my lifetime. Hell, I probably said it myself in the past.

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.
_mentalgymnast

Re: KimberlyAnn Moves to Delphi...

Post by _mentalgymnast »

Coggins7 wrote:
Absolute balderdash! You cannot KNOW for yourself with perfect certainty that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ or that the Mormon church is what it claims to be. How exactly are you supposed to tell someone else how to know for themselves that which you don't know yourself and that which, in fact, cannot be known? Ridiculous.



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.

One must be forgiven for wondering just what mechanisms obtain here that allow anyone, even KA, to know and comprehend the contents of the minds of others. If I claim to know there is a God, most rationalists would only complain that this obviates any objective verification, and hence, is not open to confirmation by independent observers. This would be the standard empiricist problem with religious truth claims.

Now, KA claims that she has acquired absolute knowledge, in some manner, that my claim of absolute knowledge of the existence of God is in fact, a false claim. We would wish to know then, in what manner this knowledge was obtained, and how it functions; that is, how it is that the subjective contents of my mind are available to her such that an absolute claim about them can be made with certainty (a certainty that she denies to me regarding a positive claim about God's existence).

Why is absolute, certain knowledge open to her and not to me? How could she have acquired knowledge regarding my interior experiences, perceptions, and feelings?

Was it objectively acquired (in which case, since my subjective perceptions are not available for objective scrutiny, as any metaphysical materialist would agree, the means would remain obtuse)? or it this claim also subjective on her part (in which case her claim to know something regarding God or my claims to knowledge about him can be no more legitimate epistemologically than my testimony is claimed to be).

One option is that KA has a god-like mind herself, and has acquired such knowledge about my subjective perceptual world through some revelatory means. This, however, would be inconsistent with her general views regarding both the existence of god-like mental states and the likelihood of the existence of the principle of revelation.

Another is that she is projecting her own life experience-which does not include any experience with spiritual feelings, perceptions, or reception of spiritual knowledge, onto me, assuming that her experiences in this area must, for all intents and purposes, be very much like everyone else's.

The quandary is: I claim to know something others do not know and which is not directly accessible objectively. I claim to know techniques through which one can know subjectively the same things I know. KA refuses to use the techniques. There is then no subjective experience to confirm my claims.

Objectively, she cannot refute my claims to knowledge, as she must already admit that my claims to knowledge cannot be inspected in an objective way. Therefore, no analysis is possible.

Nor can she refute my claims in a subjective way, as this puts here own claims in the very same boat as mine, ie, they are purely subjective and cannot be verified rationally or empirically.

What then is really being asserted here? how can claims to knowledge be made about subjective perceptions immune to the very analysis through which such a claim could be generated?


KimberlyAnn, what say ye?

Regards,
MG
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

I would venture that, regardless of any personal experiences you might have had, you cannot KNOW that it was an encounter with god, just as I cannot KNOW that I'm living in a real, physical world and not merely a figment of my imagination. The only thing that we can truly KNOW is that we exist in some sense (with a nod to Descartes).



If one cannot know that he is existing in a real, physical world and is not merely a figment of his own imagination, then it necessarily follows that one cannot know whether the contents of that physical world, or any specific contents of one's mind, are real. It therefore follows from this that the claims you just made above may be nothing more than the figments of your own imagination. It also follows from this that in such a universe, all of us can be trapped in an imaginary world of our own making in which be believe we "know" things that are, in fact, ephemeral or only some of us could be so trapped.

Indeed, you yourself, if you cannot know whether or not the fundamental constituents of your perceptual world are real, may be the only person in the universe so afflicted. How would you know? It would stand to reason that there would probably be at least some others suffering under this limitation, but there is no way you could know that to be the case. Indeed, there would be no way you could infer this to be the case as, if you cannot even be certain of your own existence in the phenomenal world, or that the contents of your own mind are stable, logic, which would allow you to infer the probability of things beyond your own direct perception, would be called into question as a valid intellectual construct.

It would also be the case that, in such a universe, you could not possibly make the statement "you cannot KNOW that it was an encounter with god" because your own epistemology has already negated the possibility of any positive claim to knowledge about any such phenomena. If, by the logical implications of your own argument, I cannot know my encounter was with God, then you cannot in any sense have any knowledge regarding this encounter or its nature beyond the knowledge you have that you cannot know.

This then, is the only knowledge you can have: that you cannot know anything regarding my knowledge or even if your own knowledge that I cannot know there is a God is even reliable.

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.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.


- Thomas S. Monson
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