Normal

Knowledge could more accurately be characterized perhaps as "belief shared among reasonable people".

And a common mistake too. A disputable aspect of reality does not negate it's existence.

What constitutes a consensus, and why does that consensus have the authority on reality? There was a certain consensus of earilier times about a flat earth, but just because there was a consensus did not mean the conclusions about reality of that consensus were accurate.

In fact, this is false. It doesn't "account" for providing "sufficient" evidence to you, because doing so would be removing your free will to not believe, which is the real crux of the matter.

Normal

That is assuming the bible is any more a tool of god then the Iliad is.

Mageth

Originally posted by Normal
My claim is that there may be sufficient evidence, but the real claim is that were god to provide you with sufficient evidence, you could not choose to not believe. You would be forced to believe because there is sufficient evidence.

If god presented you with sufficient evidence, how could you possibly choose not to believe?

Remember that earlier you said:

My argument is that every belief of yours is an excercise of your free will.

Under this argument, your own words, God can't force me to believe. You need to modify or withdraw one argument or the other in order to escape the contradiction, Normal.

Further, I still assert that there is sufficient evidence to accept evolution, yet many still choose not to believe. One could think of many other examples were people are presented with sufficient evidence of something but still choose not to believe it.

In any case, as I pointed out, and as you didn't respond to, Christians (and the Bible) claim that merely believing in God's existence (or knowing God exists) gets one nowhere. One still has to make the "free will" choice to accept him and his plan and serve him. The bible makes it clear that many were given sufficient evidence but still chose not to "believe". The Bible makes it clear that many that know God exists choose not to serve him. The Bible makes it clear that Adam and Eve knew God exists and yet chose to disobey, and gives many examples of the same sort of behavior. God could give me "sufficient evidence" for me to reach the conclusion that he exists without violating my free will - God will not force anyone to serve him - and this is according to the Bible. I'll repeat my earlier paragraph:

In any case, most Christians (and the bible) make it clear that believing or knowing isn't sufficient - something about "even the demons believe". One still has to choose to serve God, to jump through the right hoops, so our free will to accept or reject God would be intact even if God provided sufficient evidence of his existence (this seems to be clearly indicated by the Bible).

If you believe there is sufficient evidence for something (ie. that it is raining), you cannot say "It is not raining, though I believe it is".

That's quite different than your original statement: "I believe it is raining, when it is not". Stated the new way, yes, it may be a paradoxical statement, but as originally stated I would not call it paradoxical. Right back to my original comment about your statement: "No. I don't think you got the wording right."

As an interesting aside, have you ever been to the desert of the Southwest U.S.? One can, on occasion, encounter a thunderstorm, see the lightning, see the rain descending, watch the weather channel and see the green area on the radar indicating rain, yet you can stand under that thunderstorm and not get wet, not get splashed by one drop, as the rain evaporates before it hits the ground. So, is it raining or is it not?

"It is not raining' is a direct inference that you have sufficient evidence to believe it is not raining.

No, it infers that you have sufficient evidence to know it's not raining.

"I believe it is [raining]" is a direct inference that you have sufficent evidence to believe it is raining.

One needs very little evidence or even no evidence whatsoever to believe it is raining. Belief does not depend on sufficient evidence. People believe all sorts of weird things with little or no evidence to support their belief.

This highlights the difference between believing and knowing, something that seems to be confusing you.

That's why it's a paradox.

Yes, you could construct a paradox using rain as an example, but your original statement "I believe it is raining, when it is not" is not paradoxical. A paradox is a self-contradicting statement. As I can believe it is raining when it is not raining, this statement is not self-contradictory. As I pointed out, I could come to the mistaken belief that it is raining based on faulty evidence. As another example of this, I could be sitting in a room with no windows, and a trusted friend could come in soaking wet folding a wet umbrella and tell me "It's raining cats and dogs outside, and it looks like it will be for a while!" Now, at this time I have sufficient evidence to believe it is raining outside, but my friend could be jerking my chain - he could have sprinkled himself and his umbrella with water in the men's room. It could be a sunny, cloudless day outside. At this point I could (and probably would) believe it is raining outside, based on sufficient evidence, when it is not.

Edited to add: I think this rain thing is getting a bit off topic, and would recommend we drop it.

Mageth

I'll point you to the shining example of Kurt Wise, as described in this article by Richard Dawkins. In Wise's own words (emphasis mine):

So, evidently, there's more to belief, for some anyway, than just "sufficient evidence".

Normal

There is no contradiction. God can't force you to believe, but providing sufficient evidence is forcing you to believe.

Asserting "There is sufficient evidence for X for me" does not mean, in general "There is sufficent evidence for X for everybody".

Some would assert "There is sufficient evidence for a historical Jesus".

That you can disagree is an exercise of your free will to choose which evidence you consider to be sufficient.

I didn't respond to this because we are talking about belief in general, not about "the right hoops to get into heaven".

The thing is, there is no difference in meaning between the two:

"I believe it is raining, when it is not".

"It is not raining, though I believe it is".

You are still asserting contradictory things with the assumption of belief.

That sounds like an interesting vacation spot. To answer the question: Depends on your definition of raining.

How is knowledge different from belief?

Isn't asserting "I know X to be true" really saying "I believe there is sufficient evidence to suggest X to be true"?

But when talking about sufficient evidence to believe, knowledge and belief become intertwined.


To believe in X is to say "There is no sufficient evidence to make me assert not X over X". When you say "I believe it is raining" you assert that there is not sufficient evidence to say "It is not raining". When you say "It is not [raining]", you assert that there is not sufficient evidence for you to use that it is raining. It is a self-contradicting paradox.

But you cannot assert "I believe it is raining when it is not", because you are simutaniously asserting "It is raining" and "It is not raining" based on evidence you currently have.

I think it highlights some of the ways we are talking past each other, so I think it's a valuable example.

Normal

In his own words, the only sufficient evidence allowed is god's word.

Mageth

God can't force you to believe, but providing sufficient evidence is forcing you to believe.

Finally, you've given a real example of a paradoxical statement.

How is knowledge different from belief?

I explained this. Belief requires no evidence.

As far as the rain thing: one last word. As I pointed out, you can state the rain thing paradoxically, but your first statement was too poorly worded to do that. You've needed several paragraphs to attempt to clarify it, and have had to restate it differently to make it paradoxical. As originally stated, it is not paradoxical.

Depends on your definition of raining.

Another example of why your original statement is not necessarily paradoxical.

In his own words, the only sufficient evidence allowed is god's word.

You didn't read his words very well, then:

if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate.

In other words, he would admit that there was sufficient evidence to disprove creation, but his belief in the Bible would cause him to believe in Creationism in spite of the evidence. The "sufficient evidence" would not force him to not believe in creation.

Stephen T-B

OK, Normal, consensus doesn’t confirm a thing’s reality - that was a good point you made about the Earth not being flat merely because everyone thought it was. “Democratically validated credulity,”
is an expression I really like, and the fact is, it creeps in all over the place.
What I’m struggling with is something completely different.

I have to say, I get impatient with assertions that “reality” is subjective, and I have a good precedent: Samuel Johnson showed his impatience with it when he kicked that stone, declaring “I refute it thus!”

Can we, perhaps, agree that consensus is at least a guide to a thing’s external, objective reality?
Were the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre real? Were the airliners which were flown into them real? Was their collapse real? Does Washington really exist? Does Iraq?
I have an apple tree in my garden. It is real. I have absolutely no hesitation in asserting that, and I can do so because any person coming into my garden who is in possession of his/her mental faculties will not argue as to where it stands in my garden, how high its tallest branch is, the girth of its trunk or wether it is bearing fruit.
These are facts which can be established by measurement and which are supported by agreement.
It has an external, objective reality, and if you don’t believe it, try walking through it.

Now, the situation is complicated by the fact that some abstractions are also real. The days of the week are real. We make them real. We also make gods real when our belief in them dictates or influences our behaviour.

They remain abstractions, nevertheless.

If someone cannot tell the difference between the god he believes in and the car he drives to work in, then I suggest he is suffering from a mental condition which prevents him from distinguishing the difference between something which has an independent existence outside his brain, and something which doesn’t.

Your god is in your head. Not mine. Not even in the person who stands next to you in church, and you could prove it with a simple exercise: both of you write down how you envisage God; list all the attributes you envisage he possess; all the things he requires of a human being; all the activities he approves of and all the activities he frowns on, giving a value of one to ten to each. Thus: you find a rather nice pen on the sidewalk and keep it without making any effort to trace its owner - is this a one-star sin in God’s eyes or a five-star sin? An intruder breaks into your house at night and you crack him over the head with an iron bar – is this a two-star sin or a nine-star sin?

Do you think those two lists would be identical? Do you think if you both prayed before embarking on the exercise that they would be identical?

If I were convinced that gods had an independent existence outside the human brain, I could - as Mageth points out - then decide whether or not I wished to obey their commandments. And these commandments, furthermore, would be unambiguous. Everyone, whether in Atlanta, Leeds, Baghdad or Beijing, would agree what they were. Every human being on the planet now knows the rules and could decide whether to abide by them or not.
Our free will would not be infringed, and we would not be asked to believe in something which no two people can agree on.
Every human being could decide whether to obey or not to obey - and reap his just reward.

Anything wrong with that?

Normal

What I should of said was: God can't force you to choose what is and what is not sufficient evidence (doing so is an act of free will), but god, knowing what you view as sufficient evidence, and proving himself by those means, would be infringing on your choice not to believe.

And I ask you again, what is the difference between "sufficient evidence for a belief" and "knowledge"?

The original statement you think is not paradoxical:

"I believe it is raining, when it is not".

The revised statement you think is paradoxical:

"It is not raining, though I believe it is".

There is no difference in meaning between the two. I've been trying to explain how both are indeed paradoxical.

A person claiming "It is not raining, though I believe it is" is presumably not going to switch his definition mid-sentence to confuse everyone.

In other words "All evidence outside of god's word is not sufficient to disprove god's word". All the evidence in the universe is not sufficient, to him, to disprove creationalism.

Normal

How do you differentiate between the abstractions we make real and reality itself?

No, but no two person's definition of "chair" would necessarily be the same. That does not mean that chairs to not exist for both people.

The problem, as has been for a while now, is god forcing everyone to be convinced that such a god exists.