A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
Just about every theist intent on convincing anyone else of their wild claims will eventually land here, with a claim like this. That "material senses" are unreliable for discovering "truth." I admit they aren't perfect, and probably can't be, but every single item of knowledge that you have likely has its "ancestral" roots in an item of data you gained via your material senses. Please enlighten me if you think you've found an exception. As an example of even an abstract that can be boiled down to material interaction and sensory input: let's take "love". Sure, "love" at its most abstract has only tangential relation to material senses, but let's take you back to being a baby, freshly born. In what ways would you have experience "love?" Your mother's touch, perhaps? Providence of your needs? As you would grow and could understand more, you would experience that some people are cold, unforgiving and uninviting. These ideas about them would come from their visible aspect, body language, or audible aspect through tones of voice. The absence of their touching you would also be an indicator, again a material sense allowing you to understand that it is lacking. And then others would show you different attentions - hugs, kisses, pats on the back, long looks into your eyes, or they would make food for you, make sure you have shelter, sacrifice things for you. All material-world interaction! And all of that is exactly how you would discover or experience "love." That's how you would come to understand that abstract idea.The source also offered that Material senses are an unreliable source to use to search for truth and only sound reasoning used with logic can find the answers. This reasoning is outside the senses.
And to prove this - I want you to think of what a human brain in a vat, with no sensory input whatsoever could ever discern about "love." Can you think of anything? I certainly cannot.
You give the "material world" far too little credit, you theists. It displays a grand and sweeping lack of understanding, and leads you to come to all sorts of conclusions that simply are not representative of anything that actually occurs in reality. It is quite unfortunate.