Keithp: As for my presumption of your view, I have twice sought
clarification
concerning your views on materialism as well as your justification for
your assertions about the extent of our knowledge and to date you have
not replied.
To your satisfaction perhaps not but that is not the same as not replying.
I asked you why you considered me to be a materialist, I do not believe
that I am. With respect to science our knowledge is made up of
observations and hypotheses and theories based on these observations.
Keithp: As far as this discussion not getting anywhere, I can see why you
might
think that but I ll have to disagree with you. Perhaps this discussion
has not gone where you would have liked, but it has gotten somewhere.
It has demonstrated that you hold to a worldview or conceptual framework
that neither comports with itself nor with human experience. The
Huh ? What worldview are you talking about ?
Keithp: outlook you have presented makes knowledge, as it has most
commonly been
defined, impossible since we cannot know that anything is true. But of
Knowledge and truth are two very different issues. Indeed we cannot be
sure that anything is true but we can provide observations and theory to
come darn close.
Keithp: course, that statement itself is a truth claim for which I would
like
you to offer support. Your reductionistic reasoning leads to radical
skepticism (of which you seem certain). You are fond of writing of the
Skepticism as to claims of the unobservable.
Keithp: knowledge derived from observation but according to the theory of
knowledge you have proposed, one cannot even know that he/she is
observing something unless and until science confirms it. I know that I
One can certainly know that one is observing something but for it to
become part of our scientific knowledge and in order for it to become a
fact/theory/hypothesis, science has to confirm it. After all the
observation can be erroneous, outlier for instance.
Keithp: am looking at the clock on my wall right now and that I am
perceiving it
as reading 2:35. However, since that is not a scientific claim, I can't
really say that I know that, can I? I only believe that I am looking at
Perhaps the clock is slow or fast ? But is this relevant knowledge ? If so
then one can provide some scientific support for your claim. You can
certainly believe that you know the time and perhaps you are correct but
that is hardly scientific knowledge.
Keithp: my clock. That belief is of the same order as my belief in God
since no
one else can scientifically prove what I am perceiving at any moment.
But they can. It just did not happen. In case of a deity there is no
scientific proof at all possible.
Keithp: Christians understand that the world is the product God's
creative act because they have agreed that this is factual.
Pim: But there is no scientific foundation to their claim. As such
their claims remain truely subjective and the truth remains truely rigid.
It is neither based observation nor theory. It is a belief inspired by
an acceptance of something that cannot be observed and whose existance is
accepted beyond any doubt. No observations, no falsification, no theory.
Nothing but an acceptance of 'truth'.
Keithp: Once again you suggest that our knowledge is limited to what is
capable
of being observed. Once again I ask you how you know this. Is this a
scientific conclusion or rather does it fit better in your category of
"faith"?
It is a scientific conclusion. What cannot observed cannot be proven to
exist or not exist. It's the simple basics of science. What cannot be
observed is not knowledge but belief/faith etc.
Keithp: The intellectual and philosophical arbitrariness and absurdity
that you
consistently wind up in as you deny the Christian worldview, is part of
the evidence you seek in its favor.
I am not denying the christian worldview, I am merely pointing out that
there is no observable data supporting the existance of a deity. That you
consider this arbitrary is hardly reason to consider this to be such. I
can understand that the realization that there is no scientific foundation
for a deity can be shocking but to wave away arguments as arbitrary and
absurd merely indicate why religious truth is universal and eternal. Such
requires a lot of faith, to believe in the truth of something that cannot
be observed ? But the question still remains, what evidence of a deity
exists ?