We might not be able to confirm it absolutely and ultimately but a) we can confirm it (it here being generally anything) to be correct or false beyond reasonable doubt b) there still is a correct answer. I find that most arguments can be generalized into a dichotomy, certainly ones about existance. I am not able to conceive of a way to determine ultimately which flavor of ice cream is better universally though.
Correct or false beyond a reasonable doubt... kind of. It is reasonable to always doubt to some degree, because we know we are limited in how much we can know and how much we can perceive about any given subject. My argument is that we in the end must form some kind of conviction, that is something we are attached to practically and for what we understand to be valuable for our life. These convictions/practical beliefs have nothing to do with confirmation and reasonable doubts because we cannot confirm them. We simply make a leap of trust in our senses and the value of our life.
I wish that you'd elaborate, since that stance, however supportive I am of you not killing witches, means that you are practically dismissing a big portion of scripture. Who are you to make that judgment? I mean just look at Third Book of Moses 26:14 onwards. Further more, what qualifies a social law? Are the ones about sexual purity social or personal? The subject at hand is extremely personal! Again, how do you make that distinction?
Whow there bud. Dismissing? Who am I? Who are you to say I'm dismissing anything? Who are any of us? Just men, fallible and limited, doing are best to use our flawed reason to understand life, the universe, and everything. But to answer your question a little more fully... a question that you just made much bigger...
So, you seem to be asking why I don't hold to the Old Testament law. Very simple. Because Christ fulfilled the law. It says so right in the New Testement. I could quote dozens of New Testament scriptures that explain this, but the 3rd chapter of Galatians is full of explanations for this. One section of it says "Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian." The Old Testament itself is a social law, a covenant between God and the Jewish nation based on promises God made to Abraham. It isn't about what you believe, but who you were born as. Granted, there is what I was calling personal laws there, by which I meant that I do believe there is a universal morality, and that it is based on a rational universalizing of personal preferable behavior. (Most of my ideas on this are based on a a book called Universally Preferred Behavior, by Stefan Molyneux, which is free on the internet. Ironically, he is a very harsh critic of Christianity. Ironic because I love his work. XD) The Old Testament is almost as if God was attempting to create a perfect people through a social construct (not an absolute moral code, as some seem to think) and now, through Christ's sacrifice and the teachings of the New Testament, the moral law is more individual-centric because it is not about a society's relationship with God, but the individuals relationship with God; it is about the faith of the individual.
This is my best understanding at least, which is to say, my best conclusions drawn through research and reason which I believe to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. XD
Well, in this case, one person or the other must be right, because the two views cover all possible scenarios. Either God exists, or he doesn't. There is no in-between.
The difficulty is not simply if God exists, but which interpretation of God is true. Depending on what your definition of God is determines everything from how to test for his existence to whether testing even has meaning.
Sadly,we can't confirm either senario.So it's up to you to decide.
Not universally. Obviously, various groups of believers claim to have personal proof which is corroborated by the various members of the group. I do think it is very important clearly define your theory of God, his purpose in creating us, and why he doesn't provide universal proof of his existence (like materializing over the plant and saying, in every language on earth, "Hey, how is everyone doing?"). I've been working on my own theory of this, and I'm getting close to being able to post it here for the enjoyment of everyone on the meditations thread. XD
