Is a person who claims to know God, humble?

so when you talk about it being impossible to rationally discriminate on theistic issues you don't think that makes the knowledge theory necessarily weak?

 

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If anything, it is impossible to rationally discriminate on theistic issues for me.

I have never made the claim that this is the case for everyone. In fact, I have listed (in several discussions) some possible reasons why some people could, due to their circumstances, make rational decisions on theistic issues.

Circumstances such as divine inspiration, extremely positive or encouraging experiences with theists, absence of awareness of religious strife, being born into a religion.

I think I have made that clear enough over time. I usually speak about how this or that relates to me.
I rarely make objectivist claims that would presume to hold true for all.

 

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Been mulling a bit and realized I could have made a point clearer.

LG thinks that an absurdity is being presented:

Some people who have knowledge cannot share this knowledge and remain humble.

Given the value he places on humility, this would mean that knowledgeable people would have to remain silent.

Not where I am heading.

This conclusion flies in the face of actual practices of theists when presenting what they consider knowlege.

A carpenter or a dermatologist making statements of complete certainty about a wall being a supporting wall or a mole not being a melanoma, respectively, are generally willing to back up their certainty with their credentials. For the doctor, they are likely on the walls and there are other implicit proclamations of expertise, such as it would be illegal if they did not have an extensive education and apprenticeship behind them. The carpenter could refer to experience and also produce references and would not think it a strange question - if their recommendation was expensive, for example - for someone to question their expertise. It is a given that these people know that they have particular skills and talents and experience - and have gone through a process that gives their words weight and value. They are not random people, there is a reason they speak with certainty on occasion. They are, essentially, aware of their epistemology AND take credit for their knowledge and sense of their own certainty being justified.

Theist however do not, often, take responsibility for their knowledge. They are 'humble'. They point to texts or gurus or priests, etc.

But GIVEN that in the world there are many contradictory scriptures and many contradicting leaders, this is disingenous. How did they come to believe and/or continue to believe that these expert-written documents and experts were the right ones - given how most theists claim exclusivity of their path?

They must believe in their own intuition. Perhaps they reached this self-trust through great periods of contemplation, or service, or shamanic experiences, or religious apprenticeship. Or they feel they were born with an insight others must work towards and many others never find - remaining in the wrong traditions, for example.

This is not a small skill/ability they have. It is one they believe most theists in the world and obviously all atheists do not have (yet, at least).

It is as if they have nothing to do with what is clearly the truth.

Obviously this is less important around some issues. LG tossed out the knowledge 'God is eternal'. I do think one needs to explain how one can be so certain of this, if one is telling strangers, for example. But really, it doesn't matter that much.

But theists telling others, with certainty, that they are not on the right path or are the way to eternal damnation are clearly not being humble if they think this is somehow obvious and they can simply pass on this knowledge without justifying why they themselves can be so certain.

Pointing at authority figures does not release one from the claim to having a tremendous skill oneself. You had to know which one to trust, and you trust them so much you will go out and potentially terrify people who are 'following the wrong path' or are atheists.

Or I am doing God's will or even one of the milder examples 'I know God.' To say 'I know God' has implications over all other statements one makes and the actions one takes.

If you say 'I have had some contact with God' or 'I have felt God's presence' I still think some of these issues around humility arise, however these are milder.

I could have contact with earthly experts and still be ignorant of their entire realm of expertise.

For some odd reason - and I think it is connected to injunctions to be humble - theists take no responsibility for their certainty or the choice they made to give their minds and intuition over to a specific text and or religious leader.

Then of course there implicit claims when making such statements: I know what you need to hear to help you on your journey and when you need to hear it.

Or you are like Adstar and think that as long as one utters 'the truth' the fault can only be the recievers. (re:my thread He spoke to my condition)

 

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You are simply regressing the issue by suggesting that the credibility of their authority lies within the precincts of another (eg licensing) or that they can back up their claims with what effectively becomes jargon for the lay person

and the reason texts, gurus and priests are not authoritative is?

It certainly is not a GIVEN since practically any branch of knowledge you care to mention also has conflicting ideology when you get down to details

application is often celebrated as the issue that renders theory practical ... even though the same claim may be made from both - for instance if a geologist authoritatively tells a blind man that a rock is a piece of gold, and if they both say it is gold they are both correct (even though one has recourse to application and the other doesn't)

assuming that theism has no higher issues of application that intuition (no realization, no revelation, no samadhi etc)

Or perhaps its just the innate nature of any sort of successful application in any field of knowledge that the consequences establish an irreconcilable fact within the mind of the performer.

atheist - absence of application

if they are making the call from a theoretical base, like the blind man and the gold, it depends entirely on their sources.

ditto above ... although I am not sure what you are trying to push with the whole "terrify" thing. I mean if people were swimming near a shark would your working model be to make sure you don't terrify them and double check the epistemological framework (hmmm ... its only I dorsal fin and a large shadow I see) or would you work to a more urgent agenda?

The odd reason is simply your instant rejection of scriptures on the basis of conflicting details from different schools ... which is a sure fire way to reject practically any discipline of knowledge you care to mention.

Can't you see you are offering precisely this when you attempt to contextualize theism?
I guess we are back to the impractical model of humility which has as a prerequisite a total absence of directive bearing guidelines
:shrug:

 

Thats certainly not the picture we get from perusing your OP thread titles - "theists lack introspection etc etc"

a reduced intellectual capacity for awareness tends to be the more popular one (of which your last two tend to be sub-branches)

 

Except that I didn't claim that theists lack introspection.

I asked if they do.

Mean much?

I don't understand.
Are you saying that the reason why many people are theists is "a reduced intellectual capacity for awareness"?

 

I have a suggestion:

Preaching to a Postmodern World: A Guide to Reaching Twenty-first Century Listeners is a book that a devotee suggested to me, and it was suggested to him by a swami, both from your tradition.

I have the book. If you like, I can mark it up and make notes on the relevant passages and send it to you.

It explains some typical problems that occur when theists try to preach to people nowadays.

It would be too much to write up all that here at the forums.

 

LG -

I am still waiting for you to show that a theist has not committed the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

 

It could all be quite simple:
Perhaps the theists are stating a truism, something that is self-evidently true for them.
Perhaps they are not stating an explanation at all, but a truism.
It may look like an explanation to us who are not initiated into their theistic knowledge and practice, but it might not be an explanation to them at all - more a description.


It's a bit like as if someone asked you to say the ABC - it would be self-evident to you what the order of the letters is. You could, to some extent, discuss it, debate it, but the sense of absoluteness about it would remain.

Or, you could talk about how you prepared breakfast yesterday. To you, it could all be entirely descriptive, but to me, it may be explanatory. I might be reading an explanation into your description that you did not intend nor believe it applies.

 

Hi Signal,
I have LG on ignore but I do look at your posts. I caught a glance at this, of his, in one of your posts. I would guess this was a response to me,

but I am quite sure neither one of us - neither you nor I - has used the argument that multiple and contradictory scriptures mean that scriptures should be rejected. Of course one could be right. And also their could be various paths for various people. But most theists disagree and not softly with the latter and the first one leaves open the epistemological issue we have both presented, if nowhere else in there claims about the right path/(text)/leader. The issue is only how the theists THEMSELVES find the 'right one' and reject the others, which many if not most do.

I am not suggesting people reject scriptures and I find it hard to see how this interpretation came about, unless individual posts are not longer see and cookie cutter responses are the rule.

I am concerned that if I read the entire response, I would find more mischaracterizations and twisted interpretations and frankly it is just too much work, even if they are not tactical misreadings, but just the result of poor reading or leaping to conclusions.

 

It is, for example, Richard Dawkins who uses this argument.

But neither of us have used it here nor elsewhere.

Exactly.


I have stated this inquiry in several ways, and LG has either ignored it, or takes several propositions for granted that are specific only to some religions and not others, and thus cannot serve as an objective, neutral ground for religious choice.

In general, theists do seem to come from an entirely different world than some of us, yes.

 

I would agree, except most tend to refer to authority. Now it could be a truism that this is the authority, but then they should have the minimal ability - knowing God and all - to understand how for those it is not a truism, there are a diverse set of believers who see contradictory truisms. Can someone who knows God and God's will and recognizes 'his' teachers, have such a fundamental blind spot about how fellow humans work. Here we have God, presumably not as much like us as other human beings - at least in most religions - and they know God, but they don't know us. They all have mundane secular beliefs where they are not entirely sure or there are varying experts - who sells the best goats, which detergent gets out the most stains - and yet sharing this earth with people, they still seem to know God better. And yet most will also add that God is mysterious, beyond comprehension and so on.

My guess is that you have a harder time than me saying there is something fishy with people who know God but are such poor understanders of other humans, but the above, in any case, is my first reaction to this truism idea.

As an ex-English teacher, including ESL, I was not surprised this was not self-evident to people with other alphabets or illiterates.

AGain: how can they know so little about humans?

Sure, though, I would not be shocked if this came up, and I think I could work with it or at least say 'Gosh, I am not sure how to get this across without you being here.'

 

It is untenable. It's like arguing that cookies are no one's property in defense of cookie thieves who stole someone's cookies but also punish people who take theirs.

Edit: just realized this was not enough. While you are defending these cookie stealers with this viewpoint, they judge you as an evil thief AND YET you think they are humble when they do this.

 

I suppose it is by being sure they know enough.

Sure - and the theists are essentially sometimes saying the same: Come over and join us in worshipping God.

 

lol

ok.

 

Lol!

 

So this high school student who has had a semester of shop, sees the work a 20 year veteran carpenter is doing on a house and tells him he is doing it wrong (((((and will go to hell for it))))). Can this high school student really be humble?

Aren't we, ironically, protecting LG from the labeling of such judgments of him - by, for example, a huge percentage of Christians - 'approved as humble speech acts'.

 

Frankly, I don't think LG cares much either way. It seems it's all water off his lotus back.

Fortunately or unfortunately, sadly or gladly.

That's because I'm enlightened and stuff. Not.

 

This relates to the issue of channeling anger into condescension. Often in these traditions expressing anger is seen as a no, no - sometimes with provisos for what might be called righteous anger in Christianity. Seeing people as belonging to earlier stages of evolution spiritually can be a way of seeming not to be angry. The same way psychiatric diagnoses - by lay people or professionals - can wall off a person inside a label. One does not get mad at these people one does not really respect, one looks down on them. I actually find the fundamentalist anger kind of refreshing, not that I want to be close to it. But it is what it is. It is not pretending to be benevolent 'understanding'.

I do think there are instances where one can, how can I say this....responsibly find one's anger gentled when one understands that another person is ______________ (suffering from PSTD for example). I believe this can be a real trait. But there the feeling is not one of superiority. It is precisely not a gambit to relieve one from 'being someone who gets pissed off', it just happens. There is a strong element of empathy or recognition.

The main point I am making is that some religions and new age tendencies can shift whole groups of followers into this pattern in an unhealthy way. They can experience themselves as 'loving' or 'compassionate' (whatever the goal attitude is) while others experience it rather differently.

And here I am not coyly aiming this at LG. He may very well take responsibility for his anger, and not channel behind a veneer, I don't know. I was thinking more generally with theists, and theists for whom claims of humility are ludicrous precisely because of this, rather than simply epistemological hubris.

 

They say that anything is good - as long as it is employed in the service of God. This includes anger.