Belief... or lack thereof

[pocaracas]

http://replygif.net/i/792.gif

It’s the IT crowd!!
Remember the box that was the Internet?

 

[pocaracas]

You did. It is a false and badly supported claim, although it might be emotionally pleasant for you. And I have offered a counterexample.

Does the child actually have such conviction? If he doesn’t (and I suspect that he doesn’t), then all this falls.

According to these guys, “Children vividly experience interactions with their invisible friends, but they almost always know that these friends aren’t real. Looking at transcripts of interviews of 86 children with invisible friends, Taylor and her colleagues found that 77% of these children said “yes” when asked if they had a pretend friend, and 40% spontaneously remarked at some point during the interview that they were talking about a pretend friend.”

Keywords “almost always”… as in… “not always”. Sometimes, they really think the imaginary friend is real.
And all it takes is 1% of kids like this, and, out of the billions of people in the world, that automatically makes it a millions of kids experience. Big numbers suck, sometimes.

Oh, btw, read the first story right at the start of that article… the imaginary friend did have a real world expression. The kid asked her parent to stop the car, for she was almost running over the kid’s imaginary friend.

Um, you acknowledged the difference between evidence for religions and for imaginary friends that I have noted, and then you conclude that it is not a valid counterexample?

I’m afraid it is not how it works. Instead, you either have to concede that my counterexample works and disproves your claim that evidence of religions and imaginary friends is indistinguishable (that, in turn, means that all arguments that depend on this claim fail), or to explain what is wrong with it.

What?.. I’m saying that, at the psychological level, it’s the same thing.
Certainly, the human borne circumstances may be different, but that doesn’t make the conviction about the existence of either being any different.

I wonder… how would people in the the 1000’s react to knowing that their kid was seeing someone who wasn’t really there? playing with that other person… talking to him…seeing him, naming him… I wonder…

Yes, getting you to be a bit more consistent would be kinda nice.

I try my best…

You have claimed that you reject religions because they are related to the psychological features that business also relies on. In that case it would be inconsistent of you not to reject business (or to take back the claim).

But, of course, it looks like you do not care about consistency that much…

Oh boy… That’s not it at all.
I claim that religions exploit (perhaps unaware of it) some psychological flaws that we all (or most of us) share. Psychological flaws that also have an expression in the decision making process of, for example, the business world.
But they are also present in many other of our daily endeavors.

Feel free to do so. After all, I already have prepared an answer…

I guess it’s today that I write it up…

Um, no, it is not better. It is much worse. Such fake invulnerability makes you much more vulnerable to self-delusions and makes it much harder to detect and recover from them.

There’s a slight chance that it is a fake vulnerability, so… I think it’s better than just be open to anything.

Well, “Jesus is a part of God” is not really a good way to put it (after all, our belief is that God is simple and has no “parts”), but yes, I think that you should accept that in such case we do have an explanation.

Yeah… I knew you take issue with that wording… but that’s sort of how it comes off… one god, three persons… sounds a lot like one god, three parts, each part with it’s particular function, but always linked up with the other two to share information of processing power, or whatever…

#####################

Well, can you at least read the Feser’s outline as if it was fiction?

After all, I have read all those things you have claimed without agreeing with them - and was even able to rewords your arguments once in a while (with some success). Is there some reason why you can’t even do the reading part?

ok… I read that thing as fiction… even as fiction, there are many leaps in there…
Although… I get the part where he considers Islam as unevidenced… I would, wouldn’t I?
The troublesome part is… I guess that if I follow a muslim’s reasoning, he’ll probably make some similar initial arguments, then move on to some different ones, never saying anything about any resurrection, and then he’d put much more stock on the miracles performed by Muhammad, while considering that Jesus was just a man… and didn’t resurrect. And I’ll understand the part where such a muslim will criticize Christianity, while finding it difficult to follow the leaps in reasoning that get him to Islam.

So… I’m in a position to understand why both reasonings lead to excluding the other party, but cannot understand why either of them is representative of reality.

[cont.d]

 

[pocaracas]

[cont.]

I’m afraid I do not get your point. You have made claims that would seem to indicate that “Step I” was something about Big Bang, I have corrected you that “Step I” is basic metaphysics, and now you respond with “Meta… indeed.”?

That’s the thing… Step I concerns meta-physics, as long as Physics can’t get there. Nowadays, Physics is getting there. This realization makes it apparent that meta-physics is not valid.

Really? Will you tell the ones working in SETI that they must believe that aliens do not exist? Naturally, that would mean SETI has to be closed down…

I used a capital ‘A’ for Aliens, not a small ‘a’, for aliens. I’d think that you Christians would appreciate the difference.

And yes, if they were looking for xenomorphs, I’d pretty much want them to shut down SETI!
But SETI has no ‘A’ in that acronym, does it?

That, coincidentally, means that, even if evidence would be there to be found, we wouldn’t find it without at least a temporary assumption that aliens exist. It is not that different with religions - if you refuse to consider God’s existence seriously, you will not find any evidence.

That’s a weird feature of God. An entity that allegedly permeates everything and yet one must be convinced of it’s existence prior to sensing it.

Although, if you want to have a more recent example, the Higgs Boson. Theorized for decades, a huge machine was built on purpose for finding it… and it did, to within 5-sigma!
What made people spend all that money? all those resources, into probing matter at ever higher energies, only to find a theoretical particle?

Damn scientists and their double standard!

Really? You have refused to accept the principle that non-existing things don’t do anything, offered a counterexample, and now, when the counterexample has been shown to be wrong, you claim that that’s why you rejected that principle?

I’m afraid it is not how it works. In fact, now you get to either accept the principle, offer a different counterexample, or to concede that your rejection is not that rational…

I had to go back and review the whole exchange… there was a bit about “without reservations” that left me on the defensive.
But yes, under the philosophical concept of “not existing”, things cannot do anything.

However, as we’ve said before, ideas exist, concepts exist. The concept of the Fairy godmother exists, the concept of God exists, the concept of dragons, xenomorphs, pegasus and leprechauns exist… there and many other concepts can do something.
For example, the conceptual pegasus can, conceptually, fly and lead fiction authors to create stories around such creatures, stories which can be actualized in book or film and brought into other people’s minds and imagination… The pegasus itself never existed, but it now everywhere… well, in every mind.

My point is that this explanation has nothing to do with that basic metaphysics. It is not an “alternative explanation” - I am not even sure that it conflicts with statements of basic metaphysics in any way.

Of course, if it would be found to conflict with them, I think it would be possible to make a case that this “alternative explanation” is just science fiction - but I don’t think that will be necessary.

It is fiction… as much as the Higgs Boson was fiction… I guess.
It’s something that comes out of the theory. A theory that comes out of considering simple principles.
With that, metaphysics is shrinking in scope.
Reminiscent of a gap…

So, you are waiting for something that (as you concede) is impossible? Doesn’t look like a reasonable thing to do…

Oh, well… Defending atheism seems to require some sacrifices from reason,

If it’s impossible, then I’ll never know.
If it turns out to be possible, then we’ll know. I wonder… how will that metaphysics-based building withstand such a discovery?
Either way, better stick with something that comes from simple processes, rather something that posits the existence of a way too complex ordered structure like an immaterial consciousness capable of generating a whole Universe.

So, in you view things that are “testable”, “tested” - and disproved (after all, in one recent study - see cbsnews.com/news/results-of-many-psychology-experiments-cant-be-duplicated-study-finds/ - about 40 per cent of repeated psychological experiments haven’t given the original results), have more weight than things that are not disproved? Looks pretty unreasonable…

Also, psychology is pretty irrelevant here. Something can be true even if it is accepted for a bad reason.

Nice article… did you see into the reasons brought forth to explain why the reproducibility of those studies failed?
It’s like they didn’t reproduce the studies faithfully… or failed to take into account regional variability…

I did say psychology was a finicky thing…

[cont.d]

 

[pocaracas]

[cont.]

OK, list those philosophical arguments in favour of ether. Something tells me you won’t be able to (or you will list something other than philosophical arguments).

Did you know that people who get a PhD in sciences are getting a Philosophy Doctoral degree?
A scientific argument is a Philosophical one.

I did link to the part of the wiki article where they present the reasoning for such an aether:
“Isaac Newton suggests the existence of an aether in The Third Book of Opticks (1718): “Doth not this aethereal medium in passing out of water, glass, crystal, and other compact and dense bodies in empty spaces, grow denser and denser by degrees, and by that means refract the rays of light not in a point, but by bending them gradually in curve lines? …Is not this medium much rarer within the dense bodies of the Sun, stars, planets and comets, than in the empty celestial space between them? And in passing from them to great distances, doth it not grow denser and denser perpetually, and thereby cause the gravity of those great bodies towards one another, and of their parts towards the bodies; every body endeavouring to go from the denser parts of the medium towards the rarer?”[3]”

“James Clerk Maxwell said of the aether, “In several parts of this treatise an attempt has been made to explain electromagnetic phenomena by means of mechanical action transmitted from one body to another by means of a medium occupying the space between them. The undulatory theory of light also assumes the existence of a medium. We have now to show that the properties of the electromagnetic medium are identical with those of the luminiferous medium.”[4]”

I’m afraid that you’re projecting (to use that same psychology ). You think that it is impossible that God exists (etc.), thus confirmation bias starts its work and you take even disproof of your arguments as something that confirms your views (I have cited a couple of examples in those two posts).

I don’t think it’s impossible that God exists. I think it’s unlikely… very unlikely… just like dragons.
But yes… I can’t be free from some of those psychological flaws… One tries to minimize their action, but they do creep in…

Instead, God’s existence is a conclusion. “Basic premises” would be basic self-evident statements about the way things are, like “Things that do not exist do not do anything.”. Even in case of argument from authority, the “basic premise” would be something like “My mother wouldn’t lie to me.”.

Right… who, would you say, first came up with the premise “Things that do not exist do not do anything.”?

That second one… would require the mother to be saying an untruth, while being convinced of its veracity… not a very basic premise, for we would need to trace that mother’s acceptance of that untruth… possibly through generations… to the source of such belief.
The belief in the existence of God, as far as I’m aware, has come before any argument is made. Hence, the one true premise is that God exists.
Unless my awareness of these things is skewed… certainly, we don’t have records dating back to before such beliefs were held, so it’s not really possible to know about the origins of the beliefs.
But the arguments that are now used, like Feser’s step I, those were developed after… at least, they were written well after (thousands of years after) writing was invented.

 

[pocaracas]

Well, looking through this thread, it appears that you are not in fact as openminded as you would have us believe and I suspect (though I doubt I’m the only one) that you suffer from various naive delusions

oh…
Why do you say I’m not open-minded?
And what are those “naive delusions”?

############

Except the Pyramids of Giza are probably the most famous work of ancient architechture on the planet Despite the fact they are “physically verified” your listing them with those other things makes it look as if you do not believe they exist and perhaps think you know better than the hundreds of Egyptologists who have studied these pyramids for years

That was on purpose. The pyramids are considered to exist because credible reports do exist… they are indeed “physically verified”.

At first, I wanted to include other real world examples, but then got carried away with the obvious paranormal ones.
It’s meant to show that the same reasoning works for anything.

 

[PRmerger]

Jesus the prophet? It’s necessary to believe that He was the son of God if you are a Christian. That’s not a requirement for my belief. In fact, it’s not possible as I don’t believe in gods. Christians generally ask me what created everything, implying that there must be something omnipotent that could have done this, therefore God.

sigh.

Why do you insist on trying to digest Shakespeare when we’re still at Go, Dog! Go!.

I simply asked if you believe in the existence of the** historical** Jesus.

There is hardly a single academic, atheist or believer, who disputes that Jesus Christ, the historical Jew of ancient Palestine, lived, preached, established a church and was killed by Roman authorities.

Do you dispute this?

You are certainly free to assert this, but it would really, really, really lower my opinion of you.

Don’t you want to disassociate yourself from the same mindset as the anti-vaxxers, the Holocaust deniers, the 911 Truthers?

There is hardly a single academic, atheist or believer, who disputes that Jesus Christ, the historical Jew of ancient Palestine, lived, preached, established a church and was killed by Roman authorities.

But if that’s your story and you’re sticking to it, we can chat about proofs for the existence of the historical Jesus…

but it would really be nice to be able to go to the next step.

 

[PRmerger]

But what I believe in didn’t require creation. It has always existed.

Science is not with you on this one, Bradski.

There is increasing evidence that the universe began to exist 14 billion years ago.

Originally posted by Steven Hawking>All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. Yet it is now taken for granted.
hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

 

[PRmerger]

They show that space-time provides a mechanism for the emergence of particles out of empty-space.

Ah, no, poca. That’s only if you re-define “empty space” to mean “empty but with some little particles in it”.



And, at any rate, that doesn’t have anything to do with the MV, but rather creation from nothing.

Good… then why were you talking about things that “could” exist?

I was?

I thought we were talking about the double standard you’re espousing:

“I believe that the MV could exist, even though there’s not a single shred of evidence for its existence!”

AND

“I don’t believe that God exists because there’s not a single shred of evidence for his existence!”

#consistencyisourfriend

 

[PRmerger]

Ridiculous? well… if you think that you need complexity to bring forth simple things that then assemble themselves to become complex, but never quite as complex as the complex thing that originated the simple things… well… we go back to the main assumption being that such a maximal complexity exists in the first place.
And that goes against observations of everything else in the Universe.

Well, now you’re moving the goal post, poca.

You’re offering your refutation of an argument for God’s existence now.

We’re not talking about that here.

We are talking about the double standard you and Bradski have espoused.

As such you need to explain how it is that you can profess here that you believe in something without any evidence for its existence, but also proclaim that you won’t believe in something until you have evidence for its existence.

 

[PRmerger]

[cont.]That’s the thing… Step I concerns meta-physics, as long as Physics can’t get there. Nowadays, Physics is getting there. This realization makes it apparent that meta-physics is not valid.

This sounds suspiciously like the Science of the Gaps belief.

“We don’t understand it, but Science will explain it in the future!”

How is that really any different from the objection put forth by atheists regarding the “God of the Gaps”: we don’t understand, therefore God did it.

You’ve just espoused the flip side of the coin to this: we don’t understand now, but, hey, Science will figure it out, man!

#thatsfaithbased

 

[PRmerger]

I used a capital ‘A’ for Aliens, not a small ‘a’, for aliens. I’d think that you Christians would appreciate the difference.

And yes, if they were looking for xenomorphs, I’d pretty much want them to shut down SETI!

Well, I’m a Christian and I don’t know what you mean by Aliens with a capital A vs aliens with a small A.

Can you please 'splain?

That’s a weird feature of God. An entity that allegedly permeates everything and yet one must be convinced of it’s existence prior to sensing it.

Huh?

Who says that one must be convinced of its existence prior to sensing it?

 

[DeusExMachina]

oh…
Why do you say I’m not open-minded?
And what are those “naive delusions”?

############


That was on purpose. The pyramids are considered to exist because credible reports do exist… they are indeed “physically verified”.

At first, I wanted to include other real world examples, but then got carried away with the obvious paranormal ones.
It’s meant to show that the same reasoning works for anything.

: confirmation bias, your seeming lack of ability to even imagine hypothetical supernatural situations, et cetera

 

[pocaracas]

Ah, no, poca. That’s only if you re-define “empty space” to mean “empty but with some little particles in it”.

And, at any rate, that doesn’t have anything to do with the MV, but rather creation from nothing.

I redefine “empty space”?
I merely define it as QCD defines it. As science defines it.
That you use an outdated version of that definition is no problem of mine.

And if that’s capable of creating a Universe, then it’s capable of creating multiple universes. That makes it have something to do with MV.

I was?

I thought we were talking about the double standard you’re espousing:

“I believe that the MV could exist, even though there’s not a single shred of evidence for its existence!”

AND

“I don’t believe that God exists because there’s not a single shred of evidence for his existence!”

#consistencyisourfriend

Indeed you were… and there you go again! (my underline)

#########

Well, now you’re moving the goal post, poca.

You’re offering your refutation of an argument for God’s existence now.

We’re not talking about that here.

We are talking about the double standard you and Bradski have espoused.

As such you need to explain how it is that you can profess here that you believe in something without any evidence for its existence, but also proclaim that you won’t believe in something until you have evidence for its existence.

I already did that.
I agreed that “I believe that the God could exist, even though there’s not a single shred of evidence for its existence!”
But I don’t believe God does exist.

###########

This sounds suspiciously like the Science of the Gaps belief.

“We don’t understand it, but Science will explain it in the future!”

How is that really any different from the objection put forth by atheists regarding the “God of the Gaps”: we don’t understand, therefore God did it.

You’ve just espoused the flip side of the coin to this: we don’t understand now, but, hey, Science will figure it out, man!

#thatsfaithbased

Perhaps my attempt at being careful with the language employed failed miserably…
Physics has been clearly gaining terrain to metaphysics. That may have not stopped yet, and may even take over all of that metaphysics concerning the start of the Universe.
If it does, then what?
Speculation, please.

############

Well, I’m a Christian and I don’t know what you mean by Aliens with a capital A vs aliens with a small A.

Can you please 'splain?

There was a link in there, this IMBD page: imdb.com/title/tt0090605/… Aliens!

Huh?

Who says that one must be convinced of its existence prior to sensing it?

err… you…?
Luke.

 

[MPat]

According to these guys, “Children vividly experience interactions with their invisible friends, but they almost always know that these friends aren’t real. Looking at transcripts of interviews of 86 children with invisible friends, Taylor and her colleagues found that 77% of these children said “yes” when asked if they had a pretend friend, and 40% spontaneously remarked at some point during the interview that they were talking about a pretend friend.”

Keywords “almost always”… as in… “not always”. Sometimes, they really think the imaginary friend is real.
And all it takes is 1% of kids like this, and, out of the billions of people in the world, that automatically makes it a millions of kids experience. Big numbers suck, sometimes.

So, all your evidence consists of word “almost”? In a blog post? Without actual numbers and methods? And that is enough to get you to believe in that creature of “atheist mythology” - “a kid that believes imaginary friend he made himself actually exists”?

I’m afraid it means that you’re in no position to laugh not just at Catholics or Muslims, but also at ufologists and cryptozoologists… The evidence they use is much more impressive.

I wonder… how would people in the the 1000’s react to knowing that their kid was seeing someone who wasn’t really there? playing with that other person… talking to him…seeing him, naming him… I wonder…

They would understand their kid is role-playing and, most likely, would play along? Like sane men of other time periods?

What?.. I’m saying that, at the psychological level, it’s the same thing.
Certainly, the human borne circumstances may be different, but that doesn’t make the conviction about the existence of either being any different.

You say many things - it doesn’t make them true. Even the blog post you cited says that 40 per cent of kids did admit that those imaginary friends do not exist - and on their own initiative. It doesn’t look like anything similar to belief leading to martyrdom.

The mere fact that you have to pretend that those cases are somehow “indistinguishable” shows how badly your atheism fits the facts.

Oh boy… That’s not it at all.
I claim that religions exploit (perhaps unaware of it) some psychological flaws that we all (or most of us) share. Psychological flaws that also have an expression in the decision making process of, for example, the business world.
But they are also present in many other of our daily endeavors.

So, now those “psychological flaws” are not reasons to reject religious belief? OK, let’s wait for the full argument.

There’s a slight chance that it is a fake vulnerability, so… I think it’s better than just be open to anything.

I’d say it is almost certain that it is a fake invulnerability. But, of course, it would not be a fake invulnerability, if you would see it as such.

ok… I read that thing as fiction… even as fiction, there are many leaps in there…
Although… I get the part where he considers Islam as unevidenced… I would, wouldn’t I?
The troublesome part is… I guess that if I follow a muslim’s reasoning, he’ll probably make some similar initial arguments, then move on to some different ones, never saying anything about any resurrection, and then he’d put much more stock on the miracles performed by Muhammad, while considering that Jesus was just a man… and didn’t resurrect. And I’ll understand the part where such a muslim will criticize Christianity, while finding it difficult to follow the leaps in reasoning that get him to Islam.

I see, you haven’t actually argued with a real Muslim apologist. And I have to say that they do not argue in the way that you imagine. I’m afraid that even in a thread dedicated to such miracles (forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=960638), those miracles were kinda downplayed…

You see, that’s the problem of taking evidence you made up as if it was real…

 

[pocaracas]

: confirmation bias, your seeming lack of ability to even imagine hypothetical supernatural situations, et cetera

Oh, I can certainly imagine hypothetical supernatural situations…
What sort of sci-fi, Marvel and DC geek would I be?!

It’s their connection with the reality where we live that I can’t piece together.
Well, I can piece it together, if the religious aspects are all bred out of some psychological phenomena, instead of the claimed exterior entity which appears in the story.
I can “willingly suspend disbelief” for the sake of a story… but not for the sake of a documentary… (unless the documentary is about the story, like here:imdb.com/title/tt0499516/)

 

[MPat]

That’s the thing… Step I concerns meta-physics, as long as Physics can’t get there. Nowadays, Physics is getting there. This realization makes it apparent that meta-physics is not valid.

It is fiction… as much as the Higgs Boson was fiction… I guess.
It’s something that comes out of the theory. A theory that comes out of considering simple principles.
With that, metaphysics is shrinking in scope.
Reminiscent of a gap…

So, in your words, what exactly is “Metaphysics”?

For no, Physics is not “getting there”.

That’s a weird feature of God. An entity that allegedly permeates everything and yet one must be convinced of it’s existence prior to sensing it.

Although, if you want to have a more recent example, the Higgs Boson. Theorized for decades, a huge machine was built on purpose for finding it… and it did, to within 5-sigma!
What made people spend all that money? all those resources, into probing matter at ever higher energies, only to find a theoretical particle?

Yes, I could have used that example as well. For without any “temporary assumption” that Higgs Boson exists, Large Hadron Collider wouldn’t have been built (well, why would we build something that costly without thinking of any use for it?). And without it, Higgs Boson wouldn’t have been found.

And that is my point - in general, if you reject something so strongly, you are less likely to find evidence for that “something”.

It is not that different with God - someone who disbelieves in God so forcefully that he will not look for evidence (sometimes some atheists even seem to avoid “reductio ad absurdum” arguments, as they might need a temporary assumption “God exists.”) is unlikely to find any evidence.

Damn scientists and their double standard!

Not all scientists are atheists, you know… And not all atheists are scientists…

I had to go back and review the whole exchange… there was a bit about “without reservations” that left me on the defensive.
But yes, under the philosophical concept of “not existing”, things cannot do anything.

It is nice to see that agreement. So, does it mean agreement with principle of causality telling us that change (actualisation of potencies) requires something (a “cause”) that is actual already?

If it’s impossible, then I’ll never know.
If it turns out to be possible, then we’ll know. I wonder… how will that metaphysics-based building withstand such a discovery?
Either way, better stick with something that comes from simple processes, rather something that posits the existence of a way too complex ordered structure like an immaterial consciousness capable of generating a whole Universe.

Um, do you remember how we got here? For you have just agreed with the statement that you were trying to attack in this “subthread”.

Did you know that people who get a PhD in sciences are getting a Philosophy Doctoral degree?
A scientific argument is a Philosophical one.

The sight of you ending up claiming that “findings” of psychology “outrank” scientific arguments is rather amusing… I guess I should wait and see if you won’t have to refute this your argument all by yourself…

 

[PRmerger]

I redefine “empty space”?
I merely define it as QCD defines it. As science defines it.

LOL!

So empty space is space that has particles.

You’re saying that science now has re-defined empty to mean “not empty”.

Science now says “empty” means “well, only kind of empty.”

 

[PRmerger]

I agreed that “I believe that the God could exist, even though there’s not a single shred of evidence for its existence!”
But I don’t believe God does exist.

Fair enough.

And why don’t you believe that God exists?

 

[PRmerger]

Perhaps my attempt at being careful with the language employed failed miserably…

Actually, I don’t think it failed at all.

I think it reflected quite accurately your paradigm.

That you think it “failed miserably” really is only a reflection of your understanding that your position is failing miserably.

Physics has been clearly gaining terrain to metaphysics. That may have not stopped yet, and may even take over all of that metaphysics concerning the start of the Universe.

What is the above if not a perfect example of the Science of the Gaps ideology.

“We don’t know now, but Science, man, Science. Science has got it going on and will give us the answers, even if we don’t know the answers today.”

Nothing wrong with that, of course. I am a big fan of Science.

But I just think it’s amusing to see the double standard espoused by atheists who object to the God of the Gaps ideology, while also embracing the Science of the Gaps ideology.

Why the double standard (again!), poca?

 

[PRmerger]

There was a link in there, this IMBD page: imdb.com/title/tt0090605/… Aliens!

Yeah. Saw the link.

But I had every hope that you really weren’t referencing the movie Aliens in your answer because that would have been really, really inane.

I thought you meant something different.

sigh.

err… you…?
Luke.

Ok. This should be quite easy to demonstrate.

All you have to do is show the post where I espoused the belief that one must be convinced of God’s existence prior to sensing Him.

Please offer the link of my post.

Thanks.