In fact, there are likely millions who think that they know. I think of Maliha (of the blog "Lightness of Being"1). In an e-mail last year, Maliha listed eight or ten "ways of knowing" that god exists—even of knowing god, including intuition, insight, and imagination. (If I can find the e-mail, I'll add the others.)
And my cousin Vera finds god's existence "obvious," although she hasn't told me by what privileged sixth sense she knows this, except that she hinted it might be female intuition. (She had told me that though my unbelief troubled her, she had noticed that many of the men in our family have had trouble "believing in god," whereas the women haven't.)
I suspect that there are literally millions of Muslims like Maliha and millions of Christians like my cousin who feel they know that god exists. (I suppose there are even a few such Jews as well.) I'm willing to accept that and classify them as "'knowing' theists," but with the quotation marks around "knowing" to express my skepticism.
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- Maliha shut her blog down three days ago, explaining that "I need to discipline and allow myself to mature in some ways. I also hope that this move will quiet down the chatter within."
I'm not by default impressed when persons claim to "know" in the sence you are discussing. I've known too many of them to change dramatically. Revisit them in a decade or so and they "know" something else just as forcefully.
ReplyDeleteI like it when the logical component of "knowing" is the dominant one. Others are icing on the cake, but I am suspicious when only the other ones exist.
Alas, humans don't always have much to hang our hat on. Even our conception of logic changes, and even our perception of science.
Thanks for that, Tom. I'm not clear at this point what our own position is with respect to what you "know" of god's existence. I'm pretty sure that you said you didn't know in the sense of its being proven (by science, at least).
ReplyDeleteBut I believe you subsequently added that you "know" in some other way. But not, I take it, in any of the special senses of intuition, insight, imagination, female intuition, and the like (which you say don't impress you).
Perhaps in a special sense of "proven by logic"? (You "like it when the logical component of 'knowing' is the dominant one.")
Please clarify this for me. As you know, I do want to understand your position on this.
The logical base of my belief is what I outlined in last week’s post Why Do Bad Things Happen? updated for atheists (sort of) I consider the material reasonable. It answers many questions that I have not seen answered otherwise: why evil and suffering, why do we die, why do we act contrary to our own principles as to what is right, not to mention offering an appealing prospect for the future. All one must do is accept the Adam and Eve premise, and there seems to me to be no genuine reason not to accept it other than pretentiousness….the notion that it is too childlike for us sophisticated adults.
ReplyDeleteOkay, the logical basis of your belief is your construction on the faithful assumption that the myth of Adam and Eve is no myth at all but literal truth (revelation, I suppose, for otherwise how was [or were] the author[s] to know?). If that serves well enough to meet your needs, then who could I be to try to dispose of it, if not an overly sophisticated, pretentious, and of course highly suspect adult?
ReplyDeletePeople need what they need and their friends don't try to take it away from them.