Is the Holy Ghost legitimate?

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

I sometimes do think you go beyond pragmatism and into solipsism. But then sometimes you reign yourself in.

I said: " At the end of the day, it doesn't matter all that much. What matters is that it works." This is practically the Gospel According to Mfbukowksi!

And you start talking about correspondence theory of truth as if that had anything to do with what I was saying. It's very simple. Minds exist - there is no question about that. The Holy Ghost may or may not exist. Therefore the claims are not on equal grounds in terms of probability. It has nothing to do with positivism or scientism. One can be pragmatic and not abandon one's mind to mushy thinking. Just because our models and interpretations can never completely correspond to external reality, does not mean that some models do not come closer to external reality than others. It's not an all or nothing proposition. Think calculus, with the concept of approaching zero, but not equal to zero.

Lost a long  post- will get back to you.Every word in that post implies the correspondence theory of truth.

Quote

Just because our models and interpretations can never completely correspond to external reality, does not mean that some models do not come closer to external reality than others.

 

Gosh 

Tell me how we can know if we are more or less "close" to what cannot be perceived or known at all?

And solipsists do not get as annoyed as I am now- at themselves.  Just absurd.

"Our mind is the Holy Ghost" contradicts the idea that "The holy ghost does not "exist"- unless our minds do not exist.

And I  don't even know what "exists" means since I have no clue what non-existence is --oops- is not.  Does what is unknowable "exist"?  How do we know????

Do undiscovered species "exist"??   What are they that does not exist?   These are all absurdities.

Fergitaboutit - nothing more to say anyway

I dont even know what a reality  which cannot be perceived could be much less how we know if we are close to describing it or not.  Absurd.

How do we know if my view of the creature Xantikuous is closer to correct or not?

[Okrahomer]

3 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

“Our mind is the Holy Ghost" contradicts the idea that "The holy ghost does not "exist"- unless our minds do not exist.

And I  don't even know what "exists" means since I have no clue what non-existence is --oops- is not.  Does what is unknowable "exist"?  How do we know????

I love Mfbukowski!

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

because someone didn't recognize (or listen) to the spirit. Why would the holy ghost "sometimes" help? Might as well believe it is a coincidence.

Another incomplete and inane answer. One day I will learn and stop trying.

Edited March 24, 2018 by The Nehor

[SamuelTheLamanite]

13 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Another incomplete and inane answer. One day I will learn and stop trying.

Why would the Holy Ghost "sometimes" help? Does he get tired? "Sometimes" only makes sense if you are talking about coincidence.  The Holy Ghost is always trying to help us all, but the problem is that we mortals don't always recognize him.  It is not the Holy Ghost's fault.

[Garden Girl]

Like numerous others here, I have recognized and felt the influence of the Holy Ghost through the years... I've heard the "still small voice" in my mind and heart as clearly as someone standing beside me... and I've cherished these experiences... I'll share one such experience...

I had been driving a Dodge Grand Caravan that my husband and I bought... After he passed away my income was reduced considerably, and as a widow on a pension and Soc Sec, I had to be extremely careful about expenses/purchases.  In 2008 the van was 14 years old... and needed some expensive repairs that were not worth making due to the age of the van... so I left the service dept and walked over to the showroom and lot to look at what was available.  I had been quite pleased with the old van and so looked at new ones.  I found one I really liked... but was unsure about purchasing another van when I could get a perfectly good car for much less.  I told the saleslady that I needed time to sit and think about it.  So she left me sitting alone in a quiet area... I began to pray for guidance... not about color/style etc., but as to whether I would be able to make such a purchase and not compromise my financial security.  I went over all the pro/cons in my mind, and then asked... Will I be safe to make this purchase of a van vs. a smaller less expensive auto... as I prayed I received a clarity of mind and sense of confidence, even peace... and so I bought the new 2008 van on the spot, and paid cash for it... I can't believe the van is already 9 years old!  It has been wonderful and performed efficiently... and yes, I've been just fine financially.  

From the beach on a rainy, and even heavy hail, afternoon, as I watch the BYU/Gonzaga baseball game on BYU-TV... Cougars lead 2 - 0 bottom of the 2nd...

GG

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

4 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Perhaps God is helping the LDS church right now by exposing the problems in the current system through this scandal which hopefully will be a catalyst for change.  

How is God exposing controversial problems? Your view of the spirit is indistinguishable from normal human thoughts

God works in mysterious ways

[CV75]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

If by power you mean supernatural miracles, then I don't agree.  If you mean capacities that we have within ourselves that are natural, untapped potential that we can draw on through various means of practice, learning, growth and discipline, then I would agree. 

This is what I mean by the metaphorical approach to religion.  It requires a transformation, a death and rebirth.  Its all metaphorical, but its very real, and very powerful, but its not supernatural at all.  Institutional religion has messed it all up, all the meaning has lost.   Some of the people that get it the most seem to be outside organized religions, yet they are living Christianity in a way that is true to the metaphors and it is powerful.  

 

It depends on whether or not you consider the power of God to be a supernatural miracle. I do not; do you? It also depends on whether or not you consider our natural potential to be defined by our innate, biologically- and environmentally-enabled genius and strength alone, and that self-management (individually or collectively) alone maximizes these capacities. I do not; do you?

I'm not understanding what the observation that some of the people that "transform" via the principles of Christianity outside organized religion are "true" to the metaphors has to do with these semantics (I think semantics are useful). I mean, for example, some of these transformed people successfully practice faith healing as opposed to priesthood administration to the sick.

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Why would the Holy Ghost "sometimes" help? Does he get tired? "Sometimes" only makes sense if you are talking about coincidence.  The Holy Ghost is always trying to help us all, but the problem is that we mortals don't always recognize him.  It is not the Holy Ghost's fault.

Because we live in a Telestial sphere with the goal of self-improvement and not being led by the hand in every detail of our lives. You might as well ask why a Patriarchal Blessing does not cover exact counsel for every major decision you make in life. Surely God can reveal that. Why doesn't he? Does the Holy Ghost get too tired?

[mfbukowski]

8 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Because we live in a Telestial sphere with the goal of self-improvement and not being led by the hand in every detail of our lives. You might as well ask why a Patriarchal Blessing does not cover exact counsel for every major decision you make in life. Surely God can reveal that. Why doesn't he? Does the Holy Ghost get too tired?

DC 58

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26 For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.

27 Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

28 For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.

29 But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Your view of the spirit is indistinguishable from normal human thoughts

Quote

“God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another. …

https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-2?lang=eng

Of course.  How else would He think?

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Okrahomer said:

I love Mfbukowski!

Thanks for the kind words.

I don't know how all these folks who supposedly have a rigorous knowledge of scientific truth do NOT UNDERSTAND that we can only know what we perceive and nothing about a "reality" which is NOT perceived or beyond perception to which supposedly perceptions "correspond"!!

And they think God is a superstition??

I can experience God but I cannot experience ANYTHING "beyond" what I can experience.   

THAT is a tautology and is as sure as A=A.   Who can doubt that the world around us as we see it is "reality" and NOT what "corresponds" to reality?

Seriously- I am dumbfounded by allegedly intelligent people who hold that experience "corresponds" to a reality beyond what is able to be experienced?   And THIS is supposedly "scientific" thinking?

It's a tautology for Pete's sake!!  We can only perceive and know what we can perceive and know!!  Yet they postulate that what we perceive "corresponds" to some other reality BEYOND what we perceive.

Reality HAS to be what we perceive.  Yes there are errors like optical illusions and mirages- but why would one create a mythological metaphysics of an unknowable "reality" beyond perception because sometimes we make mistakes?? 

Absurd.

Yet again I have to parrot Rorty

Quote

 

 " To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

     Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."  

 

I have no idea why this is not obvious to everyone instantly as it was to me.

I remember reading it years ago and the light came on.  I cannot imagine it any other way, it is so obvious to me.  How can we know what we cannot perceive??

[SamuelTheLamanite]

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Because we live in a Telestial sphere with the goal of self-improvement and not being led by the hand in every detail of our lives.

So you mean the Holy Ghost won't help us during dangerous situations? Are you a father the Nehor? What kind of a father wouldn't help his child to avoid spiritual or physical harm?

For me your view seems strange. "Sometimes" is only for coincidence. Are miracles just a coincidence? Brother Nehor, what is a miracle?

12 hours ago, The Nehor said:

 You might as well ask why a Patriarchal Blessing does not cover exact counsel for every major decision you make in life. Surely God can reveal that. Why doesn't he? Does the Holy Ghost get too tired?

No need because we members of the church have the gift of the holy ghost for the rest of our lives.

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Of course.  How else would He think?

You saying the spirit is nothing more than a chemical brain process?

16 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

God works in mysterious ways

That is not an answer to my question.

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

So you mean the Holy Ghost won't help us during dangerous situations?

To escape them. Not always.

4 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Are you a father the Nehor? What kind of a father wouldn't help his child to avoid spiritual or physical harm?

God the Father. Your faith is in for a rude awakening if you think God will protect everyone from physical harm. Have you not read the scriptures at all with their accounts of trials and martyrdom?

4 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

No need because we members of the church have the gift of the holy ghost for the rest of our lives.

Then the patriarchal blessing is superfluous. Why have one?

I am going to ignore you from here on out. Bye.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

26 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

God the Father. Your faith is in for a rude awakening if you think God will protect everyone from physical harm. Have you not read the scriptures at all with their accounts of trials and martyrdom?

God the father will always protect you from physical harm when the free agency of other humans isn't involved. God doesn't stop murderers because he respects free agency. But in the scriptures the righteous prophets never die of starvation or some terrible disease (a curse in those days) because God protects them.  All you need is faith brother Nehor. Mark 16:18 says They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.  What kind of a father wouldn't protect his children?

Brother Nehor, why did the parents of a 2 year old toddler get arrested? Because it is immoral not to help your children. God isn't some monster.

26 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

To escape them. Not always.

"Not always" Miracles are not a coincidence brother Nehor. God is always willing to help.

26 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Then the patriarchal blessing is superfluous. Why have one?

Do you have an answer to your own question?

Edited March 24, 2018 by SamuelTheLamanite

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

You saying the spirit is nothing more than a chemical brain process?

LOL

No, you are forgetting Mormon doctrine. Verse 6 is as important as verse 7.

DC 131

Quote

 

6 It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance.

7 There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;

 

Without what we call the "chemical process", a material process-  in interaction with the human mind, spirit is able to communicate with us.

Spirit itself is matter. 

How do you think God organizes worlds?  All existence IS His Intelligence or Spirit.  You hear scientists now getting the idea that the universe is made of information or "consciousness" ?  

Straight LDS doctrine.  DC 93:

Quote

 

28 He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truthand light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things.

29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.

30 All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.

 

All we know is spirit matter and God's intelligence, or there is no existence.  What we call the Holy Spirit "fills the universe" with Spirit and IS part of matter

And all truth is in spheres because our knowledge is limited.  Science has its sphere, religion has its own.

Some day they will merge, if we are lucky.  But it may never happen 

[Michael Sudworth]

On 3/23/2018 at 5:03 PM, mfbukowski said:

And I  don't even know what "exists" means

Yes you do, you just used it in a sentence. And because I too know the meaning of "exists", I am able to understand your statement.

On 3/23/2018 at 5:03 PM, mfbukowski said:

Do undiscovered species "exist"??

Yes. Clearly.

On 3/23/2018 at 5:03 PM, mfbukowski said:

Does what is unknowable "exist"?

Did the Higgs Boson exist before 2013?  Before 1964?

On 3/23/2018 at 5:03 PM, mfbukowski said:

How do we know????

We directly know experience. We then formulate shared language to give an approximate description of this experience. Because others have also had direct experience we are able to come to a social agreement that the word "red" represents a specific type of direct experience.  Will you and I ever be able to demonstrate that our direct experiences of red are precisely the same? No. Indeed our direct experience of "red" is dependent on light source, angles, time of day, corneas, retinas, brain cells, nerve cells, etc....  Given these variables it is most likely our direct experience differs. And yet it is similar enough that we can both agree on the meaning of red as used in conversation.

But we could adjust our frame of reference and communicate about "red" by eliminating the enumerable variables at play with direct experience.  In addition to the experience of "red", you and I agree that red light has a wavelength between 625 - 740 nanometers (thanks, Wikipedia) given that we have also agreed that "nanometers" represent distinct lengths relative to another unit of measure we agree on, the "meter." Because, through social convention, we have agreed on these units of measure we have created an approximation of an objective standard and therefore can speak about "red" in a way that eliminates most of the variables that influence direct experience.  

Edited March 25, 2018 by Michael Sudworth

[Michael Sudworth]

On 3/23/2018 at 10:34 PM, mfbukowski said:

Who can doubt that the world around us as we see it is "reality" and NOT what "corresponds" to reality?

Who is suggesting this? Seems like a strawman to me.

On 3/23/2018 at 10:34 PM, mfbukowski said:

Seriously- I am dumbfounded by allegedly intelligent people who hold that experience "corresponds" to a reality beyond what is able to be experienced?   And THIS is supposedly "scientific" thinking?

It's a tautology for Pete's sake!!  We can only perceive and know what we can perceive and know!!  Yet they postulate that what we perceive "corresponds" to some other reality BEYOND what we perceive.

Another strawman.

You either do not understand the correspondence theory of truth or you are intentionally misrepresenting it. 

No one is suggesting a reality "beyond" our experience. The correspondence is between symbolic language and our shared observations of the world. "This car is red" is objectively true inasmuch as we have established a linguistic and social convention that the symbol "red" corresponds to a shared direct and knowable human experience. 

[mfbukowski]

7 minutes ago, Michael Sudworth said:

Yes you do, you just used it in a sentence. And because I too know the meaning of "exists", I am able to understand your statement.

Yes. Clearly.

Did the Higgs Boson exist before 2013?  Before 1964?

We directly know experience. We then formulate shared language to give an approximate description of this experience. Because others have also had direct experience we are able to come to a social agreement that the word "red" represents a specific type of direct experience.  Will you and I ever be able to demonstrate that our direct experiences of red are precisely the same? No. Indeed our direct experience of "red" is dependent on light source, angles, time of day, corneas, retinas, brain cells, nerve cells, etc....  Given these variables it is most likely our direct experience differs. And yet it is similar enough that we can both agree on the meaning of red as used in conversation.

But we could adjust our frame of reference and communicate about "red" by eliminating the enumerable variables at play with direct experience.  In addition to the experience of "red", you and I agree that red light has a wavelength between 625 - 740 nanometers (thanks, Wikipedia) given that we have also agreed that "nanometers" represent distinct lengths relative to another unit of measure we agree on, the "meter." Because, through social convention, we have agreed on these units of measure we have created an approximation of an objective standard and therefore can speak about "red" in a way that eliminates most of the variables that influence direct experience.  

First off, yes I know how the word "exists" is, absurdly, used.  And I used the word in demonstrating that it could not be defined without circularity.

Read this and get educated on the problem:  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/

Quote

Did the Higgs Boson exist before 2013?  Before 1964?

I have no clue- that is subject to the definition of "exists" which is always defined circularly.  Did you comprehend my point at  all?

Quote

 

We directly know experience. We then formulate shared language to give an approximate description of this experience. Because others have also had direct experience we are able to come to a social agreement that the word "red" represents a specific type of direct experience.  Will you and I ever be able to demonstrate that our direct experiences of red are precisely the same? No. Indeed our direct experience of "red" is dependent on light source, angles, time of day, corneas, retinas, brain cells, nerve cells, etc....  Given these variables it is most likely our direct experience differs. And yet it is similar enough that we can both agree on the meaning of red as used in conversation.

But we could adjust our frame of reference and communicate about "red" by eliminating the enumerable variables at play with direct experience.  In addition to the experience of "red", you and I agree that red light has a wavelength between 625 - 740 nanometers (thanks, Wikipedia) given that we have also agreed that "nanometers" represent distinct lengths relative to another unit of measure we agree on, the "meter." Because, through social convention, we have agreed on these units of measure we have created an approximation of an objective standard and therefore can speak about "red" in a way that eliminates most of the variables that influence direct experience.  

 

Yes of course we understand the word, but that doesn't mean it "corresponds to "reality"".  Your first paragraph above is a Wittgensteinian argument and actually contradicts the second paragraph.  The second paragraph I suppose is an attempt to say that the word "corresponds" to the experience, but it does not, because it is formulated in a way of seeing which is called  Physicalism. 

It seems you need to read a little philosophy to understand the problem.  I would like to discuss it with you when you learn a little more. You think I am making this up without a foundation in the literature? Uh, sir, I am not.  I could go on and on with examples of philosophers who have made the point I have attempted to make in my own way, but let's go for two relatively easy examples.  What kind of bugs me frankly is that you do not understand the problem or its history and yet you feel you have all the easy answers off the top of your head.

This is an easy start:  Frank Jackson

http://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/Jackson.pdf

Quote

Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like "red," "blue," and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wave-length combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence "The sky is blue." What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false.

Thomas Nagel, a classic classic statement from one of the most brilliant philosophers.  And then we have Rorty and Wittgenstein among others.

In fact just read the encyclopedia on these points.  Henceforth I will just post links for you so you can learn something, OK?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/

So that makes three sources and many more in the above encyclopedia article.

In fact in the future when you wish to ask me philosophical questions, look up the subject in that encyclopedia so we have something to discuss next time you post.  That way you will at least sound like you have some basis for your argument. 

Anyway here is Nagel

Refute any of these guys and fame and fortune will be yours!!

(emphasis added)

https://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf
 

Quote

 

At the present time the status of physicalism is similar to that which the hypothesis that matter is energy would have had if uttered by a pre-Socratic philosopher. We do not have the beginnings of a conception of how it might be true. In order to understand the hypothesis that a mental event is a physical event, we require more than an understanding of the word 'is'. The idea of how a mental and a physical term might refer to the same thing is lacking, and the usual analogies with theoretical identification in other fields fail to supply it. They fail because if we construe the reference of mental terms to physical events on the usual model, we either get a reappearance of separate subjective events as the effects through which mental reference to physical events is secured, or else we get a false account of how mental terms refer (for example, a causal behaviorist one). Strangely enough, we may have evidence for the truth of something we cannot really understand. Suppose a caterpillar is locked in a sterile safe by someone unfamiliar with insect metamorphosis, and weeks later the safe is reopened, revealing a butterfly. If the person knows that the safe has been shut the whole time, he has reason to believe that the butterfly is or was once the caterpillar, without having any idea in what sense this might be so. (One possibility is that the caterpillar contained a tiny winged parasite that devoured it and grew into the butterfly.) It is conceivable that we are in such a position with regard to physicalism. Donald Davidson has argued that if mental events have physical causes and effects, they must have physical descriptions. He holds that we have reason to believe this even though we do not—and in fact could not—have a general psychophysical theory.12 His argument applies to intentional mental events, but I think we also have some reason to believe that sensations are physical processes, without being in a position to understand how. Davidson's position is that certain physical events have irreducibly mental properties, and perhaps some view describable in this way is correct. But nothing of which we can now form a conception corresponds to it; nor have we any idea what a theory would be like that enabled us to conceive of it.13 Very little work has been done on the basic question (from which mention of the brain can be entirely omitted) whether any sense can be made of experiences' having an objective character at all. Does it make sense, in other words, to ask what my experiences are really like, as opposed to how they appear to me? We cannot genuinely understand the hypothesis that their nature is captured in a physical description unless we understand the more fundamental idea that they have an objective nature (or that objective processes can have a subjective nature).14 I should like to close with a speculative proposal. It may be possible to approach the gap between subjective and objective from another direction. Setting aside temporarily the relation between the mind

and the brain, we can pursue a more objective understanding of the mental in its own right. At present we are completely unequipped to think about the subjective character of experience without relying on the imagination—without taking up the point of view of the experiential subject. This should be regarded as a challenge to form new concepts and devise a new method—an objective phenomenology not dependent on empathy or the imagination. Though presumably it would not capture everything, its goal would be to describe, at least in part, the subjective character of experiences in a form comprehensible to beings incapable of having those experiences. We would have to develop such a phenomenology to describe the sonar experiences of bats; but it would also be possible to begin with humans. One might try, for example, to develop concepts that could be used to explain to a person blind from birth what it was like to see. One would reach a blank wall eventually, but it should be possible to devise a method of expressing in objective terms much more than we can at present, and with much greater precision. The loose intermodal analogies—for example, 'Red is like the sound of a trumpet'—which crop up in discussions of this subject are of little use. That should be clear to anyone who has both heard a trumpet and seen red. But structural features of perception might be more accessible to objective description, even though something would be left out. And concepts alternative to those we learn in the first person may enable us to arrive at a kind of understanding even of our own experience which is denied us by the very ease of description and lack of distance that subjective concepts afford. Apart from its own interest, a phenomenology that is in this sense objective may permit questions about the physically basis of experience to assume a more intelligible form. Aspects of subjective experience that admitted this kind of objective description might be better candidates for objective explanations of a more familiar sort. But whether or not this guess is correct, it seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective. Otherwise we cannot even pose the mind-body problem without sidestepping it.

 

 

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Michael Sudworth said:

You either do not understand the correspondence theory of truth or you are intentionally misrepresenting it. 

No one is suggesting a reality "beyond" our experience. The correspondence is between symbolic language and our shared observations of the world. "This car is red" is objectively true inasmuch as we have established a linguistic and social convention that the symbol "red" corresponds to a shared direct and knowable human experience. 

Aha!  Yes you are right about that on some forms of the correspondence theory as seen in contemporary philosophy- but not in religion.

BECAUSE of the "correspondence Theory" as it is used in religion, it is not believed to "correspond" to a shared social convention but to an invisible reality.

Because we have words which will allow us to say that three persons are one in "substance" the assumption is that magically the words "correspond to the reality" of the relationship of the Godhead

So as always the problem becomes contextual.

Your definition of the correspondence theory works and makes sense, yes- and in fact I would subscribe totally to that VERSION of "correspondence".

But many think that the correspondence is not to social convention but to "things as they are" BEYOND social convention- to "TRUTH".

So yours is the straw man- obviously I agree that social convention IS what makes up language itself.  So it is almost circular to say that propositions correspond to language- which is what you are really saying.

Language=social convention= sentences.   Of course A "corresponds" to A in an equation of A=A

But that is not the point.  The question is between language and "things as they are"- not social conventions.

YES a reality beyond our experience is PRECISELY what is being postulated.  Look it up in the stanford encyclopedia 

From now on I will just answer you with links to the encyclopedia if at all.  This is a waste of time

 

Quote

 

Vagueness or circularity[edit]

Either the defender of the correspondence theory of truth offers some accompanying theory of the world, or he or she does not.

If no theory of the world is offered, the argument is so vague as to be useless or even unintelligible: truth would then be supposed to be correspondence to some undefined, unknown or ineffable world. It is difficult to see how a candidate truth could be more certain than the world we are to judge its degree of correspondence against.

On the other hand, as soon as the defender of the correspondence theory of truth offers a theory of the world, he or she is operating in some specific ontological or scientific theory, which stands in need of justification. But the only way to support the truth of this theory of the world that is allowed by the correspondence theory of truth is correspondence to the real world. Hence the argument is circular.^[7]

 

 

Edited March 25, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Michael Sudworth]

6 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

First off, yes I know how the word "exists" is, absurdly, used.  And I used the word in demonstrating that it could not be defined without circularity.

Now you are using sentences that are unintelligible. 

 

7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes of course we understand the word, but that doesn't mean it "corresponds to "reality"".

Of course it does. If it did not correspond with your direct experience with some cognitive function you would not know what the word means.

 

[Michael Sudworth]

1 minute ago, mfbukowski said:

So it is almost circular to say that propositions correspond to language- which is what you are really saying.

I am saying no such thing. Propositions do not correspond to language.  Propositions correspond with a symbol description/approximation of human experience.  Language simply give us the ability to express propositions based on shared social convention.

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, Michael Sudworth said:

Now you are using sentences that are unintelligible. 

 

Of course it does. If it did not correspond with your direct experience with some cognitive function you would not know what the word means.

 

Oh gosh

contradictory we are not talking about the experience of reality but reality itself

[mfbukowski]

fergitaboutit

 

Edited March 25, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Michael Sudworth]

5 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

we are not talking about the experience of reality but reality itself

Yes we are.

The "experience of reality" is simply a subset of "reality itself." 

 

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, Michael Sudworth said:

Yes we are.

The "experience of reality" is simply a subset of "reality itself." 

 

I wish people knew that but they do not.  Go ahead and try that one out on any religious board that propositions about God symbolize social conventions and not the "reality itself" of God.

If that is all you are saying, I have no beef with you