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QwertyGirl
Guest
Children believe in the Easter Bunny with a hundred percent certainty even though it’s false. That’s why I answered yes, to your question.
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ericc
Guest
I would consider it to be no evidence at all of God’s existence, It would prove nothing in-so-far as the objective existence of God goes. I still couldn’t be certain about whether He exists only in my mind or not. And the thing is…that you can’t be certain either.
Those were interesting statements. Even if God were to appear in front of you, that’s not good enough to establish certainty for you. Even if God were to appear to multiple persons, it still doesn’t meet your criteria of certainty. So what does?Personal experiences, even my own, aren’t proof of very much.
So what proof is required to establish certainty? What is your criteria? Is that standard determined objectively or is it just a personal standard? How do I know that standard is reasonable?
Interestingly, Jesus commented on that before. No matter what evidence is provided, unbelievers will be unbelievers.
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QwertyGirl
Guest
(raising hand). I can answer this. For me I would need to engage at least with one of the five scenses: see, hear, smell, taste, touch.So what proof is required to establish certainty? What is your criteria? Is that standard determined objectively or is it just a personal standard? How do I know that standard is reasonable?
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KindredSoul
Guest
Yes, one can, subjectively. Obviously not objectively because to be objectively certain of something false is an oxymoron. But, whether by some mistake in logic that one never realizes in one’s lifetime, or by what the Church calls “invincible ignorance,” or whatever else, it is logically possible that a person could have the exact same confidence in a falsehood as in something that is a 100% proven fact. If later that confidence is shattered it doesn’t prove they weren’t really (subjectively) “certain” before, it just means their certainty was mistaken. But they could have had every reason, as far as they knew, to believe the false thing was a 100% proven fact.
This is not always something we humans like to admit is possible, because it reminds us of how fallible the human intellect is, and that scares us. We often prefer to accuse, explicitly or implicitly, wrong people of knowing they’re being illogical on some level, or of just not having the right training in logic, etc. We are terrified, often, of the idea that someone could have been educated in logic, have an intelligent and sane mind, have done everything possible to grasp sound reason, yet still somehow make a foundational error in logic that allows them to truly perceive that some falsehood is as certainly true as 1+1=2. Because if they can be so wrong, so could we. Yet as scary as that is, it is true, and admitting it is the path to intellectual humility.
Humans are not perfect nor mentally infallible, and only a mentally infallible person would be guaranteed to never be making some error in judgment or logic that he himself never caught. And the thing about making an error in logic is that, by definition, for as long as you’re making that error you won’t know you’re making it, or else you wouldn’t be making it.
So yes, a person can think something is an ironclad truth, can think the arguments are flawless, and that his skill with logic is sufficient to be certain that he is not deceived, and yet, due to human fallibility, he could be making an error in logic even despite thinking his logic was impenetrable.
Again, this is about subjective certainty, the notion that a person, from his own point of view, could be absolutely convinced that a falsehood is true, even though he is just as convinced he is following all the right steps of logic as anyone could possibly be, etc., such that he is truly “invincibly ignorant,” not intellectually responsible for his wrongness because he is subjectively doing just as much as anyone else to soundly, sanely, and rationally discern the truth: He just has a blindness to some error. “If you were blind, you would have no sin.”
This is not always something we humans like to admit is possible, because it reminds us of how fallible the human intellect is, and that scares us. We often prefer to accuse, explicitly or implicitly, wrong people of knowing they’re being illogical on some level, or of just not having the right training in logic, etc. We are terrified, often, of the idea that someone could have been educated in logic, have an intelligent and sane mind, have done everything possible to grasp sound reason, yet still somehow make a foundational error in logic that allows them to truly perceive that some falsehood is as certainly true as 1+1=2. Because if they can be so wrong, so could we. Yet as scary as that is, it is true, and admitting it is the path to intellectual humility.
Humans are not perfect nor mentally infallible, and only a mentally infallible person would be guaranteed to never be making some error in judgment or logic that he himself never caught. And the thing about making an error in logic is that, by definition, for as long as you’re making that error you won’t know you’re making it, or else you wouldn’t be making it.
So yes, a person can think something is an ironclad truth, can think the arguments are flawless, and that his skill with logic is sufficient to be certain that he is not deceived, and yet, due to human fallibility, he could be making an error in logic even despite thinking his logic was impenetrable.
Again, this is about subjective certainty, the notion that a person, from his own point of view, could be absolutely convinced that a falsehood is true, even though he is just as convinced he is following all the right steps of logic as anyone could possibly be, etc., such that he is truly “invincibly ignorant,” not intellectually responsible for his wrongness because he is subjectively doing just as much as anyone else to soundly, sanely, and rationally discern the truth: He just has a blindness to some error. “If you were blind, you would have no sin.”
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ericc
Guest
How would you respond to someone after witnessing a supernatural event declares “I must be hallucinating! Such things don’t exist!” Sure there are people who refuses to acknowledge their senses. For them, I think no proof is necessary, it is a waste of time.(raising hand). I can answer this. For me I would need to engage at least with one of the five scenses: see, hear, smell, taste, smell.
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QwertyGirl
Guest
I wouldn’t necessarily believe someone else’s account of a supernatural event. It wouldn’t be that I didn’t believe they believed what they believed. I just wouldn’t have first hand knowledge of exactly what happened to know with certainty it wasn’t a false conclusion they came to regarding the event. There are too many variables that could factor into any one incident. Unless I was aware of all the variables, I couldn’t make a judgement as to whether the claim was credible.How would you respond to someone after witnessing a supernatural event declares “I must be hallucinating! Such things don’t exist!” Sure there are people who refuses to acknowledge their senses. For them, I think no proof is necessary, it is a waste of time.
Now if I experience it myself, then I believe.
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OKComputer
Guest
I used to think that truth would always win in the end, but now I understand how powerful denial is. I know of wonderful, smart people who believe things that are clearly not true or based in reality.
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TheAmazingGrace
Guest
Of course. My middle brother, for example, is 100% convinced that Coke is better than Pepsi. Following the example of St. Monica, I pray that this wayward boy may one day see the light.Can one believe in something with absolute certainty even though what they believe in is false?
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ericc
Guest
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. Suppose the person was you. You didn’t believe your own eyes/ears/smell. And you claim you must be hallucinating. Sure there are people like that in a perpetual state of denial, refusing to believe what the senses and even the 6th sense are telling them. People after experiencing an NDE, refusing to acknowledge there is something there but claiming chemicals in the brain must be responsible for all that. There is such a class of people, I’m not sure is there a certain name for them other than stubborn. Visions experienced by multiple people of the same object are conveniently attributed to mass hallucination or hysteria even when no scientific explanation was possible.I wouldn’t necessarily believe someone else’s account of a supernatural event.
So do we engage with this sort of person? My take was no proof is necessary since that would be a futile exercise. Similarly, sometimes on CAF when logical arguments can not sway a person, it is better to walk away. Because all the correct arguments and explanations will not win it. But at least I will try to defend my position honorably so that the other party can be educated that others do have very sensible positions contrary to theirs.
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QwertyGirl
Guest
Oh if I am the one experiencing the event then I 100% know it is true. No doubts. But I keep it to myself so nobody thinks I am crazy.Sorry if I wasn’t clear. Suppose the person was you. You didn’t believe your own eyes/ears/smell. And you claim you must be hallucinating
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IWantGod
Guest
OkaySherlock Holmes famously said, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
- You are not a necessary being. You move from potentiality to actuality… Necessary actuality does not move from potentiality to actuality precisely because its actuality is necessary. Therefore your particular nature is not the intrinsic identity of a necessary being. There is no possibility of you being a necessary reality
- Contingent beings require the existence of a necessary being in order to have existence because any number of contingent.beings, although they may be causally related, cannot produce what they do not necessarily have, which is existence. In other words, existence does not originate with contingent beings. There is no possibility of existence originating with your nature.
- Therefore you are not the only being that exists, and there is at least one being existing outside of your mind that you are dependent upon for your existence. However-improbable this may seem to you, it must be the truth
I’m sorry if that is difficult for you to accept…dear Watson.
You are a prime example of somebody who is absolutely certain of something being true when it is wrong.The only thing that the mind can ever be certain exists, is itself.
Anybody who respects the principle of non-contradiction can see that you are mistaken. It is true that we cannot a-priori demonstrate that the universe in particular exists objectively and neither can our senses provide certain knowledge of its objectivity. But we can prove to ourselves that the very act of reality does not originate with our minds by simply acknowledging that we are not necessarily actual.
We are contingent beings.; thus not only is the idea that you are the original existence not self evident, it’s nonsense. Thus, since you are not God, the idea of a creator God is definitely more likely, even if you disagree that it’s certain…
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shanishani7
Guest
Protestant is one of these. I really do not understand why they insist to remain in this false faith.
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ericc
Guest
The food may not be as wholesome there, but it still serve the Lord’s mission in many other ways. But could be better.Protestant is one of these. I really do not understand why they insist to remain in this false faith.
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IWantGod
Guest
It was not an arbitrary statement. I explained why you are not a necessary being here.You can’t simply make an arbitrary statement like that and expect it to go unchallenged.
Do you deny that you change, that you move from potentiality to actuality, that you grow in your knowledge and experiences, that you receive and produce information potentially? If your mind was necessarily actual, there would be no part of it that was potentially realized or unreal since that would contradict the fact that you are necessarily actual. Your mind would be pure-actuality with no potential…But you have potentialities that are unrealized and therefore not ontologically necessary. If you admit that you change then you have to admit to yourself that your act of reality is simply a sequence of potential experiences and thoughts. You’re a contingent being..You are not a necessary being. You move from potentiality to actuality… Necessary actuality does not move from potentiality to actuality precisely because its actuality is necessary. Therefore your particular nature is not the intrinsic identity of a necessary being. There is no possibility of you being a necessary reality
But if you don’t like that conclusion you can always throw out reason, you can simply ignore the principle of non-contradiction, and then believe in whatever fantasy you want. But then in that case don’t act like you’re a reasonable person. But if you are a reasonable person i don’t think you will do that.
So the qeustion is, are you an honest person.
I’m honest. For the very same reasons i stated above,i know that i am a contingent being and that there must be a necessary reality outside of my mind that is distinct from my mind, and my minds existence is dependent upon the necessity of that reality. Otherwise we end up with an insurmountable contradiction.The fact that we cannot know for certain if the universe in particular exists outside of our mind is irrelevant.
It’s not me that needs to prove it. its you…I submit, that if I didn’t exist, nothing would exist…prove me wrong…
The problem with you is that you ignore peoples arguments and assert that they are arbitrary or assumptions without demonstrating that to be true. You pretend to be the reasonable one, but you have given no rebuttals; you are just dictating your favorite point of view.The problem with the vast majority of people’s thinking is that it’s based upon a set of assumptions
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BlackFriar
Guest
I suppose the problem is that the more important truths have nothing to do with the senses, though the alleged true proposition/reality may make itself known through the senses.
That means:
(a) some form of faith or trust or coercive logic is always mediating the challenge…and so can be denied so far as 100% scientific evidence is concerned. Flat Earthers still do just that today.
(b) the sensible event causing the truth trauma cannot be repeated to others usually. If it was repeatable we wouldn’t have been traumatised in the first place because it would be a common place experience and an accepted truth already. All that can be repeated is a testimony … back to trust again for our confidence.
But faith/trust can be a reasonable basis for certainty all the same.
However, unlike many, I personally do not believe it is a one time only conversion event.
It needs to be weighed regularly against new experiences and evidence in case it one day becomes unreasonable to keep trusting. eg Galileo.
It also involves a continual journey within - because what we are prepared to believe in in the world has a lot to do with the person’s we are, the values we hold, the things we hold dear, the sort of person we want to become and those we want to share our lives with and be changed by.
That means:
(a) some form of faith or trust or coercive logic is always mediating the challenge…and so can be denied so far as 100% scientific evidence is concerned. Flat Earthers still do just that today.
(b) the sensible event causing the truth trauma cannot be repeated to others usually. If it was repeatable we wouldn’t have been traumatised in the first place because it would be a common place experience and an accepted truth already. All that can be repeated is a testimony … back to trust again for our confidence.
But faith/trust can be a reasonable basis for certainty all the same.
However, unlike many, I personally do not believe it is a one time only conversion event.
It needs to be weighed regularly against new experiences and evidence in case it one day becomes unreasonable to keep trusting. eg Galileo.
It also involves a continual journey within - because what we are prepared to believe in in the world has a lot to do with the person’s we are, the values we hold, the things we hold dear, the sort of person we want to become and those we want to share our lives with and be changed by.
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BlackFriar
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Not sure about the logic here.So you’ve simply asserted that potentiality and actuality are accurate descriptors of the way in which reality functions, in spite of the fact that observation says that you’re wrong. Things don’t move from potentiality to actuality, they move from one state of potentiality to another.
If a thing move from one type of potentiality to another type of potentiality then that surely means the realisation of a potentiality to do so.
But all this is just semantics if you do not have a concrete example of what you are talking about?
I think the real problem is that the potentiality/actuality pairing is tautological.
Its true, but doesn’t lead us to any new predications about concrete reality.
For example, my brother and I recently discovered we share a common parent. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence!
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IWantGod
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So you qeustion that change is occurring at all. And you suppose that you are the one being reasonable? Well, you have to qeustion the very notion of change otherwise your rebuttal has failed. As long as you realize that we should just agree to disagree because i cannot rationally deny change anymore than i can deny my own existence. Since there is change, then potential is being realized all the time, in other-words becoming actual.I would question the very concept of potentiality and actuality.
I would like to think that i am getting through to you. But then again, maybe lisaandlena is just a figment of my imagination.
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Curious11
Guest
This question is a little harder to answer than it looks. I believe Descartes played with this idea and embraced what he called “methodical doubt” as an intellectual exercise, that nothing he knew was certain because there was always the possibility that he was being manipulated by some evil genius. Eventually he concluded that there was at least one thing he knew: he thought, therefore he was.
If you want to go further ahead that’s really up to you, but I suppose very few things can be known with absolute, 150% certainty. There can almost always be room for doubt, no matter how unlikely.
If you want to go further ahead that’s really up to you, but I suppose very few things can be known with absolute, 150% certainty. There can almost always be room for doubt, no matter how unlikely.
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IWantGod
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One thing he failed to realize is that he could not have come to that realization without change, in other-words a change in his mind. There are two things we can know for certain a-prior, your own existence and change.Eventually he concluded that there was at least one thing he knew: he thought, therefore he was.
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Curious11
Guest
Aha. Nice, if there’s an afterlife maybe you could tell him in person
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