A priori knowledge

Originally posted by lemon lime

In light of the fact that you had exercised your own free will in this matter, don't you think it's a bit presumptuous of you to insist everyone see it your way and accept what you say about this?

If this is the case, then isn't it also a bit presumptuous of you to insist everyone see it your way ~ i.e. one has to subscribe to ancient Hebrew mythology and its off-shoot etc. etc. ~ and accept what you claim about it?

Originally posted by lemon lime
Why would it have to be the same, and why assume any of this should be easy for you? If you were a "Christian" for nearly 30 years, then you obviously weren't kept in the dark about the existence of Christianity.

If you had grown up in the house next to mine here, chances are you'd be a Muslim and the regurgitating lemon limes and josephws and Grampy Bobbys of this world trumpeting their "absolute truths" and their "Word of God" would be meaningless to you. If only the revelation your God figure's divinity and instructions for mankind had been more able to convince the beings He is said to have created instead of one that celebrates the fact it is only for the "few" and they can revel in the fact they are "chosen". So mundane. And seemingly so man-made, to its very core.

Originally posted by lemon lime
Many are called but few are chosen.

Responding to a call (rather than ignoring or rejecting it) is a condition of being chosen. You can't be chosen for something if you ignore it, reject it, or don't show up and indicate a desire to join... so how is this unfair? It's not mandatory, you are are free to accept this or reject it.

And why do you believe it must be subject to geography and culture?

That is the thing, God calls us all and people respond out of all types of
circumstances good and bad. We will stand in judgment with each other as
some will reject where others answered yes, there will be no one with an
excuse. I'm sure here they will attempt to make a case, but on judgment
day all of our secrets will be revealed, nothing will be hidden.

Originally posted by KellyJay
That is the thing, God calls us all and people respond out of all types of
circumstances good and bad.

Tell me how your God figure is "calling" to my Muslim neighbours? Why has "God" not once ~ in 1,400+ years ~ indicated or demonstrated that Judaism and Islam, for example, are not the correct way to worship Him, and that Christianity - according to you - is? Surely a "call" that sounds authentic only to a "few" and sounds inauthentic to the majority of human beings, is a bodged "call"?

Originally posted by DeepThought
I should have said innate, not a priori, a little confusion on my behalf. It's the innate part that interests me in this thread. Clearly, once someone is a Christian, at least the Gospels become a priori. The passage both you and KellyJay mention is:[quote]18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrigh ...[text shortened]... So I'm wondering now if that has anything to say regarding innate knowledge of God's existence.

Romans 1:20
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.

"So it is not clear from the text alone whether Paul is referring to innate knowledge or knowledge based on evidence."

Not innate. "The invisible things" "are clearly seen" "understood by" "things that are made". Verse 19 says God has shown "that which may be known of God", is evidential, based on "the things that are made", which are "clearly seen".

"But may have had some influence on St. Paul's thinking."

Whether or not Paul's thinking was influenced by Greek philosophy is anyone's guess, but considering that Paul said, "I count all things [but] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them [but] dung, that I may win Christ," we are constrained to conclude that what God taught Paul was supremely superior to all he had learned before his conversion.

Also, Paul makes it plain in his epistles that what he learned from God after his conversion was by revelation of Jesus Christ. Which is rather interesting because it means Paul didn't learn it, either by any innate or empirical method.

"...the Book of Wisdom."

There is a very good and valid reason why there are only 66 books in the whole world that exist as "the Word of God", and all others are rejected.

It has to do with the doctrine of preservation, which is an entire subject of its own. If there be a creator God, and He has spoken and inspired His Word to be recorded, then it is only logical that God also preserved it as well. Which is not to say it isn't tampered with. It is. Even from the beginning.

Originally posted by FMF
So do non-Christians have a priori knowledge then?

Surely Christianity is something encountered and absorbed from family and culture and through study just as competing religious doctrines are?

"So do non-Christians have a priori knowledge then?"

a priori. relating to or denoting reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience. It's either by rationalization or empiricism that we learn. But there is another way.

I suppose anyone can think so.

"Surely Christianity is something encountered and absorbed from family and culture and through study just as competing religious doctrines are?"

So is dental hygiene. It's basically a no brainer that we know what we learn, but is what we've learned the truth? Not always. Even for Christians, some of whom think they know it all.

I don't see how your questions have anything to do with the topic of this thread.

Originally posted by FMF
If you had grown up in the house next to mine here, chances are you'd be a Muslim and the regurgitating lemon limes and josephws and Grampy Bobbys of this world trumpeting their "absolute truths" and their "Word of God" would be meaningless to you. If only the revelation your God figure's divinity and instructions for mankind had been more able to convince the b ...[text shortened]... an revel in the fact they are "chosen". So mundane. And seemingly so man-made, to its very core.

That is what I have been saying for years. Literally thousands of different religions around the world, some of them totally opposed to others, enough to fight wars over.

This is not something brought about by a god.

This is clearly geographically isolated people coming up with their own version of some religion as it applies to those people.

Like the isolated tribes in the middle east 3000 years ago, making up Judaism but using older Egyptian 6 day creation myths, repaving it for the semitic culture. Putting men ahead of women, ok for slaves.

But other religions having a much different take on things.

The key is this: THEY CAN"T ALL BE RIGHT.

And the opposite can be said, THEY CAN ALL BE WRONG.

But not just wrong. DECIEVED, DUPED, TAKEN IN, however you want to tag it.

Originally posted by josephw
I don't see how your questions have anything to do with the topic of this thread.

If Christianity is something encountered and absorbed from family and culture and through study just as competing religious doctrines are ~ as you appear to accept ~ then surely the idea of God's Word [as laid out in the Koran, for example] being the final authority is thus the a priori of the Muslim life too?

Originally posted by FMF
If Christianity is something encountered and absorbed from family and culture and through study just as competing religious doctrines are ~ as you appear to accept ~ then surely the idea of God's Word [as laid out in the Koran, for example] being the final authority is thus the a priori of the Muslim life too?

why would such a deity construct religions where they are automatically at each other's throats?

Don't see how that can ever be a good thing. Unless said deity was using these wars for population control. That would explain it nicely.

Originally posted by sonhouse
why would such a deity construct religions where they are automatically at each other's throats?

Don't see how that can ever be a good thing. Unless said deity was using these wars for population control. That would explain it nicely.

Why would you think God would do such a thing? There is also man with
his free will and Satan with his hate towards all the is God.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Why would you think God would do such a thing? There is also man with
his free will and Satan with his hate towards all the is God.

That's all well and good but your overriding principle here is JC and the boys are the CORRECT, the ONLY religion that gets you the get into heaven free card.

The problem there is, there were religions way before Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and there are religions after said big three.

So your thesis, your CERTAINTY, is JC and the boys gets you to heaven if you believe in them only and if you are Islam or Jewish, you go to hell or at least don't get a get to Heaven free card.

Isn't that the bottom line?

Originally posted by josephw
[b]"So do non-Christians have a priori knowledge then?"

a priori. relating to or denoting reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience. It's either by rationalization or empiricism that we learn. But there is another way.

I suppose anyone can think so.

"Surely Christ ...[text shortened]... now it all.

I don't see how your questions have anything to do with the topic of this thread.

It's either by rationalization or empiricism that we learn. But there is another way.

You mean rationalism, not rationalization. Please take a look at the following survey article.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/

As discussed in the article, to be a rationalist with respect to some subject/discourse area is to endorse some intuition/deduction thesis; or innate knowledge thesis; or innate concept thesis with respect to that subject area. To be an empiricist in the same respect is to adopt a position that more or less denies all of these theses. So, barring just not taking any stance either way, these two are basically exhaustive. There may be an exception here, related to divine revelation, implantation, or some such. But you'll need to clearly flesh out what this third option is. In the past, I recall that Grampy Bobby tried to flesh out the third option as what he calls 'faith perception', and that was more or less a train wreck.

-------------
To DeepThought:

Regarding innate knowledge of God, probably what they have in mind is something broadly related to Calvin's sensus divinitatis. The idea, roughly, would be that theistic belief can form non-inferentially through an innate sense, or divine sensorium, or perhaps even through belief infixing/implantation by God. And sometimes the claim is that this sense fails to function properly in atheists for various reasons (or they may claim that it still functions properly in self-identified atheists but that their so-called atheism is a willful reactionary stance, however daft this "there are no real atheists" position is). This is all, of course, consistent with the idea that there is still independent empirical evidence for God's existence as well, perhaps of some teleological sort.

The best expression of this view that I am aware of is again in the works of Plantinga, where he argues for theistic belief as "properly basic". Basically, he tries to provide a model of warrant for theistic belief even in the case where that belief forms non-inferentially and on the basis of no evidence. In my opinion, his accounts fail, but they are worth a read if you are interested.

EDIT: for example, check out this link:

http://cla.calpoly.edu/~rgrazian/docs/courses/412/Plantinga_BeliefGodPBasic.pdf

The above link gives some flavor of the idea but is not a full-dress presentation of his view. I have some better articles at home but cannot seem to find any free links to them online at the moment.

Originally posted by sonhouse
That is what I have been saying for years. Literally thousands of different religions around the world, some of them totally opposed to others, enough to fight wars over.

This is not something brought about by a god.

This is clearly geographically isolated people coming up with their own version of some religion as it applies to those people.

Lik ...[text shortened]... CAN ALL BE WRONG.

But not just wrong. DECIEVED, DUPED, TAKEN IN, however you want to tag it.

The key is this: THEY CAN"T ALL BE RIGHT.

True.

And the opposite can be said, THEY CAN ALL BE WRONG.

True.

But not just wrong. DECIEVED, DUPED, TAKEN IN, however you want to tag it.

But you could also be deceived, duped, taken in, or however you want to tag it by assuming none of them can be right. Judging everything in a group by a sampling and then proclaiming everything in that group to be the same would be ignoring your own responsibility.

You could go into a large car lot with the idea of buying a new car and make the same proclamations and assumptions:

The key is this: THEY CAN"T ALL BE RIGHT.

True.

And the opposite can be said, THEY CAN ALL BE WRONG.

True.

But not just wrong. DECIEVED, DUPED, TAKEN IN, however you want to tag it.

So whose responsibility is it to insure you won't be deceived, duped, taken in, or however you want to tag it? Unless you are willing to be deceived, then who is responsible for letting the buyer beware? Does that responsibility rest with the owner of the car dealership, or with you? A more fitting analogy would be going to individual car owners, but same the principle applies.

You have no control over whether or not someone might be deceiving (or is willing to deceive) you, so that particular responsibility necessarily rests with you. None of this is meant to be a mindless process that could automatically lead you to God... free will is necessarily a part of it.

Originally posted by sonhouse
That's all well and good but your overriding principle here is JC and the boys are the CORRECT, the ONLY religion that gets you the get into heaven free card.

The problem there is, there were religions way before Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and there are religions after said big three.

So your thesis, your CERTAINTY, is JC and the boys gets you to ...[text shortened]... , you go to hell or at least don't get a get to Heaven free card.

Isn't that the bottom line?

I've NEVER said just believing in God is enough! I've maintained since I've
been here over 10 years now that you need to be right with God through
Jesus Christ, which at that foundation is believing in God but you need to
be in Christ for that to matter. The devil believes in God and he is going to
hell as well as all who belong to him.

I don't care how many ways there are to God, the one thing that matters
is what does God accept! He does not accept thing short of a perfect
righteousness that is found in Jesus Christ, if you want to establish your
own righteousness you can, if you want to come to Him in a way that He
did not setup you can, just know that is what you are doing!

Originally posted by KellyJay
I've NEVER said just believing in God is enough! I've maintained since I've
been here over 10 years now that you need to be right with God through
Jesus Christ, which at that foundation is believing in God but you need to
be in Christ for that to matter. The devil believes in God and he is going to
hell as well as all who belong to him.

I don't care ...[text shortened]... nt to come to Him in a way that He
did not setup you can, just know that is what you are doing!

If I help others, behave well to my fellow man, do all the things a good christian might do, yet not believe in god or subscribe to any religion would I still be welcomed by it/him/she (assuming my Atheistic view point might be wrong) ?