Bom Promise Vs. D&C Promise - Is One Superior To The Other?

[mfbukowski]

There is no "stepping out of our minds", not here, nor as immortals, without annihilation. If you wanted to try it, it would be the only chance you got, and you'd never be able to share a single thing about the experience with anyone before you were gone forever (back into the "whole mind of God"). The shared/empirical world is the real one, there is no other to see outside the mind. The unshared/metaphysical reality is one on one with "God" alone and always will be....

Then I guess there was no reason for you to write this because you cannot even know that I exist- so what's the point?

But you are on the right track- the only "shared reality there IS is the linguistic one- a world of symbols we all recognize and trade ideas with. The very world we know is conditioned by our linguistic way of seeing the world.

So in a very real way, the world as we know it is "socially constructed". You know what a "red car" is because you have learned the word "red" which matches a certain sensation you learned in kindergarten, when you learned "your colors". You probably played with a stack of rings on a stand and the teacher asked you "Which one is red- blue-etc." and were rewarded for getting the color "right"- ie matching the sensation in your mind with the socially constructed word "R-E-D" which of course is derived from other languages which came before English.

All that you know about "red" is what you were taught. Later you may have learned that some scientist measured something also constructed similarly, called the "wave length of light" - a highly complex definition- and that reflected light we call "red" is consistent with a measurement on a machine which is socially constructed as "angstrom units" and that the machine always says red always shows the same number.

So you could take this method and realize that all you know THAT YOU CAN EXPRESS IN LANGUAGE shows you at least some kind of "shared reality".

So I wouldn't give up on that so quickly. On the other hand, you have the whole reality in your mind- your personal experiences- which came BEFORE these shared experiences and which you have learned to tag names to, like the word r-e-d symbolically expresses your personal sensation.

So yes, if you are speaking, you are sharing realities. But under it all, there is the "reality" which you personally are sharing, which is the most real thing you can know.

Reality is made of experience- not things "in the world". The things- as you know them- could not be without your knowing them. That really is a tautology like A=A.

So what you see (feel, taste, touch, intuit in your heart, decide for yourself) is YOUR unique "reality"

[Questing Beast]

...

Reality is made of experience- not things "in the world". The things- as you know them- could not be without your knowing them. That really is a tautology like A=A.

So what you see (feel, taste, touch, intuit in your heart, decide for yourself) is YOUR unique "reality"

No, what I "feel, taste, touch, etc." is what I experience, not what is real because I sense it. If I am not here, all of that still exists and continues. My being plugged into the world does not make the world's reality, I only respond to it, and define for myself what "corresponds" to reality. As I said, the shared/empirical world remains unchanged despite what a perception might otherwise say, and if that perception is dangerously misconstrued, it can kill you. Nothing about my senses changes the real world an iota....

[mfbukowski]

You are insisting that there is a world beyond what we can know, about which we can know nothing. That is superstition. I know nothing I cannot experience one way or another. Of course I experience evidence of God daily, but you are telling me that there are things we cannot experience which are real.

Name one! You cannot. You cannot name things you cannot know.

I suggest you re-read my earlier quote- you have shown no indication of having read it much less of having understood it.

I will help you and put some of it in bold:

The objection that may well have been the most effective in causing discontent with the correspondence theory is based on an epistemological concern. In a nutshell, the objection is that a correspondence theory of truth must inevitably lead into skepticism about the external world because the required correspondence between our thoughts and reality is not ascertainable. Ever since Berkeley's attack on the representational theory of the mind, objections of this sort have enjoyed considerable popularity. It is typically pointed out that we cannot step outside our own minds to compare our thoughts with mind-independent reality. Yet—so the objection continues—on the correspondence theory of truth, this is precisely what we would have to do to gain knowledge. We would have to access reality as it is in itself, independently of our cognition of it, and determine whether our thoughts correspond to it. Since this is impossible, since all our access to the world is mediated by our cognition, the correspondence theory makes knowledge impossible (cf. Kant 1800, intro vii). Assuming that the resulting skepticism is unacceptable, the correspondence theory has to be rejected, and some other account of truth, an epistemic (anti-realist) account of some sort, has to be put in its place (Cf., e.g., Blanshard 1941.)

There is no point in carrying this on

[mfbukowski]

No, what I "feel, taste, touch, etc." is what I experience, not what is real because I sense it. If I am not here, all of that still exists and continues.

I am still trying to put this in a way all can understand it, in just a few words. I don't know how to make it simpler and am continually astonished at how many cannot see this.

You are saying it is real because you sense it

But what can you know about it beyond what you can sense? Nothing. There is nothing beyond what you can sense that you can know anything about.

It "continues" linguistically, in the culture, but not for you. (Speaking as if there is no afterlife- as theists we might postulate that the world as we know it changes radically at death, because our experience of it changes radically.)

That's about the best I know how to say it.

[mfbukowski]

No, what I "feel, taste, touch, etc." is what I experience, not what is real because I sense it. If I am not here, all of that still exists and continues. My being plugged into the world does not make the world's reality, I only respond to it, and define for myself what "corresponds" to reality. As I said, the shared/empirical world remains unchanged despite what a perception might otherwise say, and if that perception is dangerously misconstrued, it can kill you. Nothing about my senses changes the real world an iota....

Sigh. I am still here.

One more try.

Let's put it this way:

With a human mind, it is as if you have rose-colored glasses permanently embedded. Everything

you see and know goes through those rose-colored glasses. You cannot take them off.

What would the word "yellow" mean to such a person? You could never get the glasses off to check

what "yellow" really was, so it would make no sense to say that what you SAW as yellow

"corresponds to the color yellow" in a world where yellow is seen as we see it.

Suppose you saw only in infrared.

How could you take those infrared glasses off to "see things as they are"? You could not.

But guess what- everyone else in such a culture would also see only in infrared, so all of

humanity would grow up in a culture based on knowing only their experiences of an infrared world.

Poems would be written about the hues of different temperatures, perhaps. We cannot imagine such

a culture.

A whole culture would exist with people thinking everything was rose-colored, or infrared, and if

you told them otherwise, they would have good cause NOT to believe you, because for them, only

nuances of rose-colors would "exist".

But for all practical purposes, their lives would be just fine. Their lives would be analogous to

those among us who we call "color blind". They would not fall off cliffs, the would just

perceive them differently than you- but still not see them "as they are".

But now extend that from just glasses to ALL of human cognition- all we perceive with our senses,

all we feel in our hearts, hunches, instincts, and intuitions.

The point is, those people could no more see "things as they are" any more than we can. We are

limited by human cognition.

We can never ever ever escape human cognition- it is the only way we know anything. But

fortunately, experiencing God is part of human cognition.

[Questing Beast]

...

We can never ever ever escape human cognition- it is the only way we know anything. But

fortunately, experiencing God is part of human cognition.

I am puzzled why you think this is a problem at all. We live in the "world of humans". Everything beneath us is within our purview. The cosmos is visible from a single perspective, we have not even traveled or sent an observant platform far enough away to triangulate yet; the cosmos is seen only from here. We deduce via light spectrum other information that our eyes cannot see, but we could be and probably are very mistaken about a great many things asserted so far about the cosmos. You say that God is experienced as part of human cognition, and that is true as far as it goes, but "God" cannot possibly be limited in return so reality is infinitely more than we will ever know, since "God" is expanding creation continually from a "vantage point" not constrained by spacetime. It makes no difference to us what else "God" does, we will never know it. That is not part of "our reality" in the world of humans. When "God" appears as one of us, it is to play by the rules established as part of the created world of humans. That is all we will ever know about "God", not even a start to comprehending Infinity....

[mfbukowski]

You say that God is experienced as part of human cognition, and that is true as far as it goes, but "God" cannot possibly be limited in return so reality is infinitely more than we will ever know, since "God" is expanding creation continually from a "vantage point" not constrained by spacetime. It makes no difference to us what else "God" does, we will never know it. That is not part of "our reality" in the world of humans. When "God" appears as one of us, it is to play by the rules established as part of the created world of humans. That is all we will ever know about "God", not even a start to comprehending Infinity....

Where did I say that God was limited by human cognition? In a sense he is and in another sense he is not. He is certainly not limited by "mortal human cognition".

But in a sense you are wrong here as well since God IS "Human". Is he limited by his own cognition, as a Human? Sounds like a semantic game to me.

I am not interested in what we cannot know- because it is unknowable. It is a waste of time to talk about. All that matters is what we CAN know.

So now does that mean that you understand that the correspondence theory of truth (ie: the idea that something we mortal humans can "know" is yet outside of human cognition) must be false- that there is nothing we can know which is outside of (mortal) human cognition?

it seems to me a complete tautology that we can only know what is capable of being known, therefore there is no way we can check what is unknowable to verify its correpondence with what is known.

That is what correspondence requires- the existence of something unknowable as a kind of substrate for what is known.

The problem is, that if that substrate is unknowable- IT IS UNKNOWABLE!

What you see (feel, sense, intuit,get a hunch about) is what you get- no more, no less.

[Bikeemikey]

You guys have single handedly provided me with the best thread conversation in a long time.

[Questing Beast]

...

I am not interested in what we cannot know- because it is unknowable. It is a waste of time to talk about. All that matters is what we CAN know.

...

If something is unknown/unknowable, we can hardly have it to talk about, surely. So it is not possible to waste time talking about something that will never come up.

"God" can augment, even change, our senses so that we are no longer "normal human". This is what happens in scripture when prophets like the bro of Jared see a vision of the whole earth from the beginning to the end thereof, and there "is not a particle of it that they do not see". This is obviously outside of human cognition. JS wakes up on his back gazing into heaven after his "first vision" (1838 style). Another time, he is carried to the room over the schoolhouse, in an incapacitated state, and the teacher assures the school children that "brother Joseph is in a vision". I forget which D&C Section got dictated on this occasion. Joan of Arc heard her "voices". Martin Harris said he saw the angel and the plates in a vision with his "spiritual eyes". There are many eyewitness accounts, separated geographically by hundreds and thousands of miles, of heavenly armies seen in the sky marching by to do battle, and the sounds thereof echoing in the distance. JS tells more than one impressionable young woman to pray for a witness that he is supposed to be their husband, and they get their witness, including angelic visitants. Yes, most (maybe all) of these kinds of experiences are metaphysical and therefore outside of human cognition with the five senses. The point is that our species is ear deep in lore of this kind and always has been. Skeptics deny it as anything but brain malfunction due to illness or biological imbalance, etc. Believers think otherwise and join new religions based on such experiences, and follow the leaders of those religions till they day they die. Where does the "real world" leave off and the unknown/unknowable begin? You say you won't waste time discussing the unknown/unknowable. How do you know where that starts? If we can discuss anything to do with hypotheses vis-a-vis the afterlife, or the nature of "God", or the purpose of existence, then haven't we already passed far beyond those vaunted philosophers you quoted already? They would probably to a man/woman denounce such topics as irrelevant because they are "UNKNOWABLE". But are they?...

[Questing Beast]

You guys have single handedly provided me with the best thread conversation in a long time.

Well it's interesting to me alright. I don't mind being entertaining either.

[mfbukowski]

"God" can augment, even change, our senses so that we are no longer "normal human".

Nope.

That's the whole point. Spiritual experiences are all "normal" human activities or we would not even know what that phrase means. The phrase "spiritual experience" would be synonymous with "eikriguwm coiftvibve". It would have no meaning whatsoever.

Obviously some people understand things better than others. That is NORMAL. Some people are color -blind also. That's not what we are discussing.

No one could receive an initial testimony of the church if it was not "normal". Moroni 10: 4-5 would not exist if it was not normal to receive spiritual confirmations.

Yet people have different aptitudes in everything. Don't ask me to play soccer. I have no interest or aptitude whatsoever for that.

You really need to stop clinging to correspondence. It only hurts your case in the long run- I don't know why people don't see that instantly.

Statements about God just don't "correspond" to anything we can verify communally. In a communal sense God does not exist- he is totally subjective for each of us.

The whole reason Nietzsche said "God is dead" is because the correpondence theory of truth killed him, and Nietzsche was completely right.

Fortunately for us, there are other theories of truth in which God is alive and doing wonders as usual. If you want to make God "real" in your life, and be able to justify your belief in a conversation against the Dawkins' of the world, you better learn about other ways of defining "truth" than using his long-outdated definition.

[mfbukowski]

You guys have single handedly provided me with the best thread conversation in a long time.

Well I am glad there is at least one person out there who is following it. Rep points gladly accepted.

[Questing Beast]

Nope.

That's the whole point. Spiritual experiences are all "normal" human activities or we would not even know what that phrase means. The phrase "spiritual experience" would be synonymous with "eikriguwm coiftvibve". It would have no meaning whatsoever.

That isn't the whole point at all. And you are denying established scriptural assertions of the effects upon the mortal body, including the mind, of being in the presence of God, or even an angel. You say these are ""normal" human activities". Anything which requires a divine augmentation of the mortal being in order to withstand it is not "normal". The actions of "God" are normality perfected, and if those include temporarily augmenting a creation to be something more than it otherwise is by nature, that is normal for "God" to do so, but it does not make the object of the augmentation in a normal state; otherwise why not just leave them that way after the experience is over? Those who have seen the all-encompassing vision of the earth from the beginning to the end thereof do not remember the details, only the memory of having seen it remains. Likewise, nobody who has seen "Perdition" or outer darkness, the fate of the SOP, remembers anything about it, only the feeling of horror as they witnessed their fate. If these kinds of spiritual experiences were normal, then there would be no trouble retaining the memories of them. To use a STOS example: Dr McCoy puts on the brain augmenter and learns how to operate on Spok's brain, then the knowledge which was crammed into McCoy's brain starts to fade out and he panics; the cramming of knowledge was a high tech process that came with a price, a risk, and could not be repeated willy-nilly or possibly fatal damage would result. Without the brain enhancer the knowledge to operate on a humanoid brain would be absent, so the enhancer was not normal to human experience. That is why the shamans of primitive religions used drugs to commune with the "divine", because our normal reality does not include such facile communication with the metaphysical. Of course none of this is connected to the differences in people, which you take on next.

Obviously some people understand things better than others. That is NORMAL. Some people are color -blind also. That's not what we are discussing.

No one could receive an initial testimony of the church if it was not "normal". Moroni 10: 4-5 would not exist if it was not normal to receive spiritual confirmations.

Yet people have different aptitudes in everything. Don't ask me to play soccer. I have no interest or aptitude whatsoever for that.

You really need to stop clinging to correspondence. It only hurts your case in the long run- I don't know why people don't see that instantly.

Statements about God just don't "correspond" to anything we can verify communally. In a communal sense God does not exist- he is totally subjective for each of us.

The whole reason Nietzsche said "God is dead" is because the correpondence theory of truth killed him, and Nietzsche was completely right.

Apparently I still don't understand what "correspondence theory" is. I read about it but I don't see how it "killed God" at all. If God is not visible in the normal, unaugmented empirical world, and that is the only way to find God, then he either never existed in the first place, or logic "killed" him?

Fortunately for us, there are other theories of truth in which God is alive and doing wonders as usual. If you want to make God "real" in your life, and be able to justify your belief in a conversation against the Dawkins' of the world, you better learn about other ways of defining "truth" than using his long-outdated definition.

Whose "long outdated definition"? Dawkins'?

It's perfectly simple: existence is inarguable, regardless of how arguments about "what is reality" go down. Existence is here and those participating are part of it. Existence requires explanation. I say it requires a "Cause", a "Necessary Cause" meaning a Cause that is not itself caused. Nothing we use to advance an idea is new. You act like these "other theories of truth" are somehow new. Nothing about positing explanations to "the terrible questions" is new. Just because someone "new" comes along and uses impressive word smithery to remix the arguments does not mean that the debate is new. it is the oldest thing about our species.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Questing Beast

[mfbukowski]

That isn't the whole point at all. And you are denying established scriptural assertions of the effects upon the mortal body, including the mind, of being in the presence of God, or even an angel. You say these are ""normal" human activities". Anything which requires a divine augmentation of the mortal being in order to withstand it is not "normal".

Sorry, God has given us all the opportunity to become like him. I think that human embryos are "normal"- and that is what we are compared to him. We are here to "fill the measure of our creation and have joy therein." Ultimately that can mean becoming like God. That IS the measure of our creation. I certainly don't think God is "abnormal", do you?

Apparently I still don't understand what "correspondence theory" is. I read about it but I don't see how it "killed God" at all. If God is not visible in the normal, unaugmented empirical world, and that is the only way to find God, then he either never existed in the first place, or logic "killed" him?

Yes.

"God exists". Please show me the reality which "corresponds" to that statement. Remember, for anything to be true in the correspondence theory, you must be able to check the reality of the statement.

"That is a red car" corresponds to the "reality" that the car is indeed red. We go out and look at it and it is or it isn't.

If you can't show me that "God exists" based on showing me the alleged "reality" of God, then the statement cannot be called "true" because it doesn't "correspond" to anything

Good luck. First cause doesn't work- that is a construct which doesn't "correspond" to anything. If you had read Hume as I have told you at least 3 or 4 times you would know that anything can be called a "cause" of anything else.

What was the "cause" of you? Your parents love for each other? Evolution? Your grandfather's love for grandma? The Big Bang? God creating everything ex nihilo? God Not creating everything ex nihilo? How about the cause of your parent's meeting? How about the cause of your 16th great grandfather coming to America and bumping into your 16th great grandmother on the street and falling in love? Was THAT your "cause"?? Causes are arbitrary definitions blaming the present on some past event- that's about it. It's all words- that's all.

What was the "cause" of the Battle of Gettysburg? Slavery or the proximity of two armies, or the Declaration of Independence and constitution which didn't outlaw slavery? Was it the bible verses which made people of the time think that slavery was right? So the bible caused the battle of gettysburg?? You can argue it anyway you want.

Anyway, that was all pretty much settled 400 years ago with Hume. We are definitely going down for the third time and I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for bikemikey.

[mfbukowski]

It's perfectly simple: existence is inarguable, regardless of how arguments about "what is reality" go down. Existence is here and those participating are part of it. Existence requires explanation. I say it requires a "Cause", a "Necessary Cause" meaning a Cause that is not itself caused. Nothing we use to advance an idea is new. You act like these "other theories of truth" are somehow new. Nothing about positing explanations to "the terrible questions" is new. Just because someone "new" comes along and uses impressive word smithery to remix the arguments does not mean that the debate is new. it is the oldest thing about our species.

I'm sorry but I don't think you or I - either of us- know what any of these words mean. Please define "existence" without using the word or its equivalent in the definition.

Why does it "require explanation"?

"Cause" is nothing - see above.

If these definitions of truth are not "new", please cite their ancient origins.

How about this one for a start? Oh, by the way "iff" is an abbreviation for "If and only if".

8.4 Deflationism About Truth

At present the most noticeable competitors to correspondence theories are deflationary accounts of truth (or ‘true’). Deflationists maintain that correspondence theories need to be deflated; that their central notions, correspondence and fact (and relatives), play no legitimate role in an adequate account of truth and can be excised without loss. A correspondence-type formulation like

(5) “Snow is white” is true iff it corresponds to the fact that snow is white,

is to be deflated to

(6) “Snow is white” is true iff snow is white,

which, according to deflationists, says all there is to be said about the truth of “Snow is white” without superfluous embellishments (cf. Quine 1987, p. 213). Correspondence theorists protest that (6) cannot lead to anything deserving to be regarded as an account or theory of truth because it resists generalization. (6) is a substitution instance of the schema

(7) “

p

” is true iff

p

,

which does not say anything itself and cannot be turned into a genuine generalization about truth; moreover, no genuine generalizations about truth can be accounted for on the basis of (7). Correspondence definitions, on the other hand, i.e., definitions like (1) or (2), do yield genuine generalizations about truth. It should be noted that (5), which lends itself to deflating excisions, misrepresents the correspondence theory. According to (5), corresponding to the fact that snow is white is sufficient and necessary for “Snow is white” to be true. Yet, according to (1) and (2), this is sufficient but not necessary: “Snow is white” will be true as long as it corresponds to some fact or other. The genuine article, (1) or (2), is not as easily deflated as (5).

The debate turns crucially on the question whether anything deserving to be called an “account” or “theory” of truth ought to take the form of a genuine generalization (and ought to be able to account for genuine generalizations involving truth). Correspondence theorists tend to regard this as a (minimal) requirement. Deflationists argue that truth is a shallow (sometimes “logical”) notion—a notion that has no serious explanatory role to play: as such it does not require a full-fledged account, a real theory, that would have to take the form of a genuine generalization.

There is now a substantial body of literature on truth-deflationism in general and its relation to the correspondence theory in particular; the following is a small selection: Quine 1970, 1987; Devitt 1984; Field 1986; Horwich 1990 & 1998²; Kirkham 1992; Gupta 1993; David 1994, 2008; Schmitt 1995; Künne 2003, chap. 4; relevant essays are contained in Blackburn and Simmons 1999; Schantz 2002; and especially Armour-Garb and Beall 2005; see also the entry truth: deflationary theory of in this encyclopedia.

http://plato.stanfor...correspondence/

I am not in this to "score points," so if you don't have a substantive, philosophically based argument to represent your position, perhaps you should reconsider your position or at least acknowledge that there may be some aspects of this which you haven't quite thought through all the way, and be open to learning. It's not like I should get any "credit" for having been obsessed with these questions my whole life- really, it has been kind of a handicap to have spent so much time on it all, when other people just seem to not have trouble understanding what "truth" is or what the word means.

A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

Edited July 20, 2013 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

The Deflationary Theory of Truth

First published Thu Aug 28, 1997; substantive revision Mon Oct 4, 2010

According to the deflationary theory of truth, to assert that a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself. For example, to say that ‘snow is white’ is true, or that it is true that snow is white, is equivalent to saying simply that snow is white, and this, according to the deflationary theory, is all that can be said significantly about the truth of ‘snow is white’.

There are many implications of a theory of this sort for philosophical debate about the nature of truth. Philosophers often make suggestions like the following: truth consists in correspondence to the facts; truth consists in coherence with a set of beliefs or propositions; truth is the ideal outcome of rational inquiry. According to the deflationist, however, such suggestions are mistaken, and, moreover, they all share a common mistake. The common mistake is to assume that truth has a nature of the kind that philosophers might find out about and develop theories of. For the deflationist, truth has no nature beyond what is captured in ordinary claims such as that ‘snow is white’ is true just in case snow is white. Philosophers looking for the nature of truth are bound to be frustrated, the deflationist says, because they are looking for something that isn't there.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/

[Questing Beast]

Sorry, God has given us all the opportunity to become like him. I think that human embryos are "normal"- and that is what we are compared to him. We are here to "fill the measure of our creation and have joy therein." Ultimately that can mean becoming like God. That IS the measure of our creation. I certainly don't think God is "abnormal", do you?

After all this verbiage I find we are essentially in agreement. How silly.

"God exists". Please show me the reality which "corresponds" to that statement. Remember, for anything to be true in the correspondence theory, you must be able to check the reality of the statement.

"That is a red car" corresponds to the "reality" that the car is indeed red. We go out and look at it and it is or it isn't.

If you can't show me that "God exists" based on showing me the alleged "reality" of God, then the statement cannot be called "true" because it doesn't "correspond" to anything

"God Is love." Love doesn't correspond to anything?

Good luck. First cause doesn't work- that is a construct which doesn't "correspond" to anything. If you had read Hume as I have told you at least 3 or 4 times you would know that anything can be called a "cause" of anything else.

What was the "cause" of you? Your parents love for each other? Evolution? Your grandfather's love for grandma? The Big Bang? God creating everything ex nihilo? God Not creating everything ex nihilo? How about the cause of your parent's meeting? How about the cause of your 16th great grandfather coming to America and bumping into your 16th great grandmother on the street and falling in love? Was THAT your "cause"?? Causes are arbitrary definitions blaming the present on some past event- that's about it. It's all words- that's all.

What was the "cause" of the Battle of Gettysburg? Slavery or the proximity of two armies, or the Declaration of Independence and constitution which didn't outlaw slavery? Was it the bible verses which made people of the time think that slavery was right? So the bible caused the battle of gettysburg?? You can argue it anyway you want.

Anyway, that was all pretty much settled 400 years ago with Hume. We are definitely going down for the third time and I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for bikemikey.

All of the literally endless things you can mention have pointed causes. Disagreement can occur on the actual cause of a thing, but what is not arguable is that there was a cause. There is no effect without a cause.

Existence is inarguable. Existence is Caused. The only disagreement here is whether or not I used the capital "C" properly, i.e. as implicit for "God". There is no resolution of that disagreement with the information we have in the world of humans, short of "God" actually manifesting and proving to an individual's satisfaction that "he" exists.

I suspect that all philosophers who argue from the pov that "God does not exist" are "color blind" or "tone deaf" where spiritual/metaphysical matters are concerned. So of course they will write tomes on how knowing "God" is impossible and therefore unreal or illusory.

The question of existence remains and "cause" or Cause is required. Assuming that existence simply is and there was never a time that existence was not, only widens the question to include "God Is Existence"....

Edited July 20, 2013 by Questing Beast

[mfbukowski]

"God Is love." Love doesn't correspond to anything?

Nope. That's why correspondence doesn't work. Can you point to "love"? Can you see it as it is to see if it corresponds to any statements about it? How would one verify the truth or falsity of any statements about love?

Yet, yes, God IS love, and that is true. So correspondence doesn't work for us.

All of the literally endless things you can mention have pointed causes. Disagreement can occur on the actual cause of a thing, but what is not arguable is that there was a cause. There is no effect without a cause.

Existence is inarguable. Existence is Caused. The only disagreement here is whether or not I used the capital "C" properly, i.e. as implicit for "God". There is no resolution of that disagreement with the information we have in the world of humans, short of "God" actually manifesting and proving to an individual's satisfaction that "he" exists.

I suspect that all philosophers who argue from the pov that "God does not exist" are "color blind" or "tone deaf" where spiritual/metaphysical matters are concerned. So of course they will write tomes on how knowing "God" is impossible and therefore unreal or illusory.

The question of existence remains and "cause" or Cause is required. Assuming that existence simply is and there was never a time that existence was not, only widens the question to include "God Is Existence"....

Since you are a proponent of "correspondence" please show me the "reality" which any of these statements "correspond with". Frankly, I don't know what most of this even means.

But since I am NOT a proponent of "correspondence" I am willing to say that such utterances might be "true" if they make you feel good and give your life meaning.

Just don't expect me to think they are "true" in any other sense. As a good correspondence man, I am sure you can verify every one of them, or you would not believe them.

[Questing Beast]

...

Since you are a proponent of "correspondence" please show me the "reality" which any of these statements "correspond with". Frankly, I don't know what most of this even means.

But since I am NOT a proponent of "correspondence" I am willing to say that such utterances might be "true" if they make you feel good and give your life meaning.

Just don't expect me to think they are "true" in any other sense. As a good correspondence man, I am sure you can verify every one of them, or you would not believe them.

I am not sure I am a "correspondence man", as you put it. Probably yes and no, depending.

I have to ask how the correspondence of existence fails to define reality. You already made a point of denying that reality is possible for us to know, since we could be compared to being color blind or any other limitation or even defect of our senses, and how would we know the difference? Yet existence, no matter how it appears to a sapient mind is not arguable, it Is. There is nothing about existence that can be inferred to be something else or counter to existence. How we perceive existence isn't the issue. Existence requires explaining, why it Is at all instead of nothing. I simply choose to call Existence God, and everything is caused by God....

[Avatar4321]

I recieved my testimony of Joseph Smith being a prophet from reading the D&C, and my testimony of the Book of Mormon.

So yes. It can work that way.