You Don't KNOW, You Only Believe! (ritual, beliefs, evolve, spiritual)

[Mister Emu]

Have you ever considered that sometimes we can know in a non-provable way.

Beat me to it.

[sojourner]

You Only Believe!

Personally, I don't think that belief is "merely" anything. Belief is of great value to us. You speak of belief as if it were inferior, somehow to empirical knowledge. It is not.

[Bishka]

Actually, I do know. I do know for myself, and myself only. Each person has to make up their own mind and decide what they know. You cannot know for another person, only for yourself.

[w00t]

Originally Posted by beckysoup61

Actually, I do know. I do know for myself, and myself only. Each person has to make up their own mind and decide what they know. You cannot know for another person, only for yourself.

Exactly!!!

[nutshell]

Originally Posted by Tangnefedd

It never ceases to amaze me how some people on forums such as this one just love to dispense spiritual advice to others. The posters offering the advice seem to have no concept that they just might be mistaken in their belief system, they are also often the ones that seem to have the least intellect too! None of us 'KNOW', in a provable way, anything faithwise however sincerely we might believe a thing to be true!

I KNOW what's true for me.

You KNOW what's true for you.

Don't try to push your KNOWledge on me and I'll do the same.

K?

[YmirGF]

Originally Posted by Tangnefedd

It never ceases to amaze me how some people on forums such as this one just love to dispense spiritual advice to others. The posters offering the advice seem to have no concept that they just might be mistaken in their belief system, they are also often the ones that seem to have the least intellect too! None of us 'KNOW', in a provable way, anything faithwise however sincerely we might believe a thing to be true!

You have my agreement with this 100% Tangnefedd. I too often sit dumbfounded when a poster with the understanding of a small garden squirrel gets rather insistent on their viewpoint. I do dispute the poster who speculated that people are simply stating their beliefs and that we should recognize their words as such but for the fact that many tend to speak in absolutes they cannot easily back down from. You can usually spot them as the people who have a tendency to get rather shrill about their illogical belief structures being questioned. It is when they sense probes going to close to the bone that they tend to get all hissy and snivelling as illustrated in the "mildly interesting" thread you commented on very recently.

I have from time to time questioned the mental integrity of some posters, and have grave doubts about the intellectual grasp of others. Some tell us that it is enough that these folks have love in their hearts and we should embrace them warmly for expressing themselves however pathetically.

My particular bug-a-boo is people who use extensive scriptural quotes to make their points. To me, they are the most insufferable sorts who are almost like "spiritual beancounters" and due to their knowledge of scripture they seem to have the impression that that in itself garners some form of residual wisdom. I don't quite understand why they get that impression, but it is fairly commonplace.

I have no difficulty whatsoever saying, "I could be wrong" but it seems to be something foreign to many others. I'm just stating things from my perspective after all, so there is always the possibility that I have misconstrued or worded poorly a given response. I personally feel/believe that religion, especially when backed up by a large number of followers lends itself to producing a distinct arrogance in the mind of the believer. They are so certain that their outlook is correct that they ignore virtually anything that does not mesh with their limited understanding.

Aside from all this, I am unimpressed with those who have great "faith". Why, you ask? The answer is simple, "I do not require faith in something I already see. I know it is there, so I don't need to spend much effort on sustaining a hope and a prayer that it might be."

At the end of the day, it is far easier to mold your ideas around reality than it is to try to get reality to conform to your ideas about how reality should behave... but... I could be wrong.

[Quagmire]

"You Don't KNOW, You Only Believe"!

You may believe this, but really, how can you know?

You see; I believe that what I know is believable only in as far as it's known. Known beliefs might well be believed without being known, but I don't believe I've ever known anyone who believed they knew something that was known to be unbelievable (only believed to be) although those very beliefs that are known to be believed by those who believe they know may well be believably unknown by those who've never known what believers are known to believe.

Ya' know?

[Melissa G]

you can only believe you know, you can't actually know because you believe. The only truths are those empirical scientific ones. Ie, 2nd law of thermodynamics,.

I thought Paul has summed up faith already, ie " Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do do not see". Hebrews 11:1. A paradox indeed, as you can't actually be certain of what you can't see, this is where self-delusion comes in, and like a virus, it spreads.

Melissa G

[logician]

Atheists know.

Agnostics don't know.

Theists don't know they don't know.