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Originally posted by Spamandham
I don't think he has learned from it. He is still beating the war drums over Iran. He appears to have reached the pinnacle of faith - insanity.
Originally posted by Spamandham
What you call faith, I call induction. Did you read the post I made a couple of posts back where I discussed these things and attempted to make definitions that we could work with? You didn't oppose those definitions, yet you are also not using them. You are still equating faith with belief of any kind, and use the word "knowledge" simply to mean "absolute certainty". I refuse to use these definitions, as they are nonstandard and appear to be designed for the express purpose of equating faith with reason via equivocation.
Originally posted by Spamandham...vague enough to be meaningless, though I can't imagine what evidence has led you to believe this exists.
Originally posted by SpamandhamI agree, but "valid" is the best we can do without perfect knowledge. "True" applies only to pure logic.
Originally posted by Simon_the_byron
Perhaps that it what it has come to mean, but in Greek to be agnostic is to hold no opinion either way. That is the definition I am using.
Originally posted by Spamandham
No it doesn't. "gnosis" relates to knowledge, not belief.
Originally posted by Simon_the_byron
Does faith always lead to insanity?
Originally posted by Simon_the_byron
Where uncertainty exists, nothing can conclusively be considered fact without faith.
Originally posted by Simon_the_byron
Nothing is certain, thus every conclusion is reached through induction, the one that is accepted is ultimately accepted in faith though, since there is no way of knowing.
Originally posted by Simon_the_byron
Perception is subjective, incomplete, flawed.
Originally posted by Simon_the_byron
Yeah, you're right - I must be tired... What I meant was to say that agnosticism is the 'belief' that it is impossible to 'know' whether God exists. It is therefore still a belief and not knowledge. At the same time, if this is the definition we're using then everyone should be agnostic, since it is impossible to know either way.
Originally posted by spamandham
No, but if you condition your mind to believe fantasies are real, that can spill over into other aspects of your life.
Originally posted by spamandham
I disagree. You are redefining the word "fact" to involve absolute certainty, just as you redefined "knowledge" to involve absolute certainty. We rarely/never have complete information or absolute certainty, yet we are compelled into action regardless. You call that faith, I call it a best guess based on the information at hand. It's an estimate of likelihoods, nothing more.
Originally posted by spamandham
Back to your dentist example, if you realize that the dentist you choose might make a mess of your teeth, then you have simply made a wager - an educated best guess, which is not the same as faith. Faith would be selecting the dentist with no information and truly believing nothing will go wrong because you hope it won't.
Originally posted by spamandham
If you realize you might be wrong, and are willing to change your position if new information later demonstrates you were likely wrong, and you have selected your position by making a best guess from the evidence you have to work with, then it isn't faith.
Originally posted by spamandham
...and yet, thats' all we have. Isn't the experience you speak of regarding god also subjective, incomplete and flawed?
Originally posted by AkashicWanderer
Originally posted by shihulud
I think your maybe a wee bit too subjective, it doesn't matter where you are in the universe 2+2 will always = 4.
How do you know this?
It is currently accepted that our Euclidean geometry is only true in this region of space. Were you to travel to a region of space with no large body of mass near it, you might find that currently accepted geometric laws are no longer in effect.
Look at it this way if you build a time machine and travel back 4000 years you will be relatively -4000 years old but really your still the same age as you were, your body will be working on your time not relative time.
This is all just subjective speculation. Were it possible to physically travel back in time, how do you know that no bodily physical variables would change?
Originally posted by Simon_the_byron
How is time the same everywhere?
Time is not a constant, the speed of light in a vaccuum is.
A year is as long as it takes for the world to orbit the sun. If you go to any other planet - a year will be longer or shorter depending on the length of time it takes for the planet to orbit the sun/star. How then is a year the same throughout the universe?