Would it be fair to say that you exclude other religions because you have not experienced the same things as the members of that religion?
What you describe seems like a rather normal position that most humans take.
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What is that?
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I have reason to believe that other religions are counterfeit with counterfeit experiences, if they indeed happened, and that Christianity fits the whole of reality from beginning to end. My experience of God’s providence is compelling beyond argument.
And they would say the same of your beliefs. It’s quite the conundrum.
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Haven’t we been here before?
See Divine providence.
Only for those who refuse to allow it and have never experienced it.
I find that the importance of a belief is more or less inversely propoertional to the certainty with which it may be held.
Mathematical truths are logically certain but (in themselves) of little practical value, or at least only for simple decisions (I know that in a gunfight at the OK corral it may be important whether I’ve fired five or six cartridges from my Smith and Wesson, but the problem is in some senses a trivial one.)
Empirical physical sciences can be that much less certain, but at least deal with real, if circumscribed, events. Biological sciences - my profession - are even less certain, but my decisions from that incomplete certainty saved or cost lives at work (Michael Polanyi was right to say that all occupations involve a body of personal knowledge that cannot be articulated, let alone deduced).
Even less certain is what to do in complex situations - Admiral Jellicoe’s decision at the Battle of Jutland was based on huge uncertainty, but winning or losing World War 1, it’s said, depended on it. the future provides us with no evidence on which to act.
Likewise deciding what to do with my life, or what girl to marry, entailed massive uncertainty and little of what some might call “evidence”, but those decisions shaped not only my destiny, but that of my family and all those whom I dealt with professionally, or who have read what I’ve written in series of authorial careers.
Moral decisions are uncertain as to the right course of action and the outcomes: if I avoid cheating on my income tax because of conscience, rather than fear of detection, some billionaire might regard me as a loser rather than a good person, especially if the evidence suggests I’m clever enough to get away with it.
Or to believe it is right to blow the whistle on some government or scientific fraud is pretty counter-evidential if I see such dissidents vilified, sacked or even imprisoned, whilst the vast majority of my peers take such evidence as a good reason to keep quiet and keep their noses clean.
Spiritual conviction is likewise not reducible to syllogistic logic or empirical demonstration. And it can, like all the above, be wrongly founded. But it also underpins all of them, from personal ethics to life decisions to practical actions.
Yet it is quite wrong to say that any of these, which are essentially faith positions (faith in moral pronciple, or in outcomes, or in people, or in God), are “without evidence,” unless “evidence” is reduced to physical data. Love itself is evidence, as most people would agree if they reflected - or if they do not, then they have not known love.
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Just as you haven’t experienced what others have, and refuse to accept their beliefs.
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Easy to say, but not if you’ve been there.
That’s the point, you haven’t been there for other peoples’ experiences. It would seem that we can all be skeptical of the experiences that others have. This is why “personal” evidence is somewhat controversial when talking about knowledge. I’m not saying we should ignore it, but surely you can see why it is difficult to incorporate this type of evidence if we are taking about knowledge.
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From big bang cosmology to global warming, megacryometeors, fires & floods, a dying planet …and the human condition.
Other faiths? Islam, for one, is not big on forgiveness. A good understanding of forgiveness – I think I got it from Tim Keller – is the willingness to absorb pain and to not spread it around… and love in return. That is pretty much supernatural.
Skepticism and denialism is easy, and it lets us off the hook.
The accounts of God’s providence are not woo, but documented natural events, only with supernatural timing and placing, and recorded by people (including me) – and not deceptively – that only want to point to the ultimate Reality, for his fame and to hopefully encourage a few others along the way to want to seek him. That is for their benefit as well as the present believer, and includes the same motivation for the future as Christ had for enduring the cross: for the joy set before them.
And that is why it cannot be considered a form of knowledge.
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…by you.
Yes. If I cannot know it, it is not knowledge. Note: I am not saying I do not know it, but that I cannot
If you had “been there, done that” you would not say that. My testimony is true – believe it, or not. If you believe it, then you have true knowledge.
So, being blind, I can’t see the picture. But can you not describe it? What other ways of knowing about the world are there other than through our sensory inputs?
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Evidence of what?
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Did you ever define what you mean by “the world”.
If it is exactly those things that fall into the domain of some science, then your definition answers the question in the thread topic.
If “the world” includes the topics Daniel noted (eg ethics, beauty, theology, what science tells us about reality), then either
- You think science completely addresses knowledge in those topics, which many see as scientism
OR - Your question comes down to whether and how we can know in those areas, which is T-a’s point about epistemology. Nagel’s Book Short Intro to Knowledge and Blackburn’s 2018 book On Truth (NB date) are good reading if you want to explore further.
There’s at least one other option but will have to wait till later as no time to respond now.