Great.
And do you do your own research each and every time you get on a plane, to make sure that the pilot is qualified to fly the plane? Or do you take someone else’s word for it?
Again, a great example. You are wonderful at this! No I don’t make such inquiries. I trust from observance of commonality, despite knowing, being interested in aeronautics, that accidents happen, even huge course variations resulting in disaster. And again, we are talking about an area radically different than religious faith, to which such an analogy can hardly apply.
But that is where this is such a great example you chose. Perhaps you have heard that they discovered why Air France 477 went down in the Atlantic? Even heard the voiced over black box recording? It seems that while the captain was on break, the co-pilot lost control of the plane due to a dysfunction in the electronics. those failed in a way that made the co-pilot blind to whether the plane was ascending or descending.* It was night, and there was no visible horizon. An argument ensued, with great confusion, and by the time the captain, who very likely know what to do, returned, it was too late.
The problem was, as one of the analysts described, that when the failure occurred, the two in the cockpit
couldn’t see through the electronics, given that they had been trained to uterly rely on them. The captain, on the other hand, had actual stick and rudder experience, being older, and would have, had he been in his seat, been able to deal properly with the defective indicators and regain control because of his extensive experience with direct controls in smaller and older, and non military aircraft.
So in this instance the reliance on the instrumentation that blinded the two in the cockpit can be analogous to the hugely extrapolated doctrine of the Church as distinct from what I see as the rather simple Presence and Teaching of Our Lord. But I could not see that until the entire rug of who and what I thought I was was instantaneously, unceremoniously, and without warning pulled completely, absolutely, and irrevocably out from under me. That is when I saw that I had no direct, only inculcated, patterns of reaction to the presentation of the world. And nothing I had access to at that time within the Church, despite sincere and strenuous efforts, could suffice as an explanation or paradigm for what had happened to me.
I was supremely fortunate. I was literally knocked out of the box I had been using to interpret the world and could see that it was a box. Sort of an OBE, but more profound, maybe an OME. Anyway, it changed my life, and I had to look elsewhere for answers, which serendipitously, I found and discovered I was not alone. Or rather that I am, lol!
And do you only say “Manila is the capital of the Philippines” only if you’ve actually been there? Or do you take someone else’s word that Manila is the capital of the Philippines?
I distinguish in my own mind between knowledge by experience and knowledge by book learning and such. For all we know, vastly unlikely as that might be, Manila has changed its name while we weren’t looking. So for me, that Manila exists by that name and is arrivable at by x means is provisional knowledge. And I use it that way, not claiming to know anything more than what is in actuality, hearsay. And in some cases I have some pretty good knowledge of consensus hearsay.
To both kinds of knowledge I try to apply critical thinking and what little I know about the nature of the human mind, perceptions, the over a hundred logical fallacies we usually use to get along incorrectly with each other, the inherent dualism of our English language, epistemology, etc, etc, etc. So my world paradigm may be a bit different than yours, which by your questions appears to be more amorphous than what I perceive, or at least more in a mold of inculcated relationships and explanations. I don’t know. As I quoted, “no one has ever met anyone.” But at least you are interesting to talk with.
