I’m not aware of any man with a 200 IQ who solely sought to “prove” the existence of God. The four theologians I mentioned earlier sure didn’t.
I believe that may be referring to: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan
Although that is not is sole purpose, nor do I think was necessarily his purpose or even made an attempt to do so… But nonetheless, he’s a “believer”. I find no intelligence in “believing”. I find it in knowing, and knowing when you do not know. Believing is essentially assuming, without knowing, and we all know what they say about assuming.
True. Equally true; you can ‘truly’ believe in what your emotions tell you more than the knowledge of them. Possibly same concerning all senses in some measure.
We can truly “believe” in what our emotions tell us, but what do you mean by “More than the knowledge of them?” Lets say, we are happy. Are you saying, it is more useful to believe why we are happy than to know we are happy? Why can’t we simply just know why we are happy, and not need to believe in why we are happy?
Do you believe in any of these things?:
- Love
- Right and Wrong
- Truth
- Beauty in Art
Because you can’t know any of them without some degree of belief.
Emotions tell us nothing, in terms of knowing. Emotions are feelings, not information.
When we are happy we usually make up convincing stories about why we are happy. Mostly its because the sun is shining; someone smiled at you; the dog did something funny; you are in love. None of these things necessarily result in happiness, but when we feel that way we like to try to point the finger at something. Same for when we are pissed off, which could also be the result of the sun shining, the wring person smiling at us and the dog acting in a way that others might find funny, but just pisses you off. Being in love, also can have negative repercussions.
But one thing is for sure’ emotions don’t tell us anything.
What do you mean “believe”?
You don’t have to know anything except what they are to believe: that’s why its belief and not knowledge.
I know enough about 2, 3 & 4 to know they are not subjects for belief, but opinion.
As for 1 this is a feeling you can have about something, I don’t see what the role of belief would do here.
Love is a concept, in what manner would I believe in Love? I experienced love, as described through this concept. I know love. I don’t see why I need to believe it first. You haven’t made that clear.
Right and wrong, is a judgment. I assume you mean morality here, not something like true/false. There is knowledge of morality, and judgment of morality, which lead to us to think is a certain moral claim true, such as “Its evil to kill babies”. Do I believe I am right when I make a moral claim? OR do I know I am right? Right and wrong are not subject to being true or false in a pragmatic sense of what it means to be true or false. Each moral claim is subject to values. It would be true that it would be evil to kill babies if we value babies, yes, from our perspective. But to someone who doesn’t value babies, and finds them… evil, would it be true? The subjectivity of morality and the sense of the word believe when dealing with morality somewhat obfuscates the matter. In this sense, it would be to hold an opinion of your moral claim; not necessarily that it is fact.
Truth - I know of truth. Believing in the truth isn’t really knowing the truth, it seems you have room for some doubt; if that is the case, then why believe something to be true if you don’t know?
Beauty in art, another subjective issue similar to morality. It depends on our perception yes? If I find a painting beautiful, I know I find it beautiful, I don’t really believe I find it beautiful if so, then I wouldn’t be sure of my judgment of beauty, which wouldn’t make much sense would it? But is it true that the painting is beautiful? In this sense, truth does not apply. It is neither true nor false that a painting is beautiful, it is true to me that it is beautiful, but not necessarily for everyone else.
I hope that answers your question? Perhaps I am amiss on how or what you wanted me to answer.
They certainly do tell us something. Perhaps it depends on how much insight you have…
Please read the entire post before answering. I was directly addressing WWW III’s separation of knowledge and belief:
So, your last post was entirely irrelevant to the argument of my post.
How do you know love if you don’t even know what it is. You believe in love and you believe you know it, but you can’t prove you know either. So, you do believe it it, and you do value belief. So, you’re condemnation of belief was hypocritical.
Again, that means you believe in it but you don’t know it. You certainly haven’t proven you know it. So, again, your condemnation of belief is hypocritical.
How exactly do you know what morality is? You just believe what morality is. Again, your condemnation of belief is hypocritical.
Thank you, you just showed us another thing you believe in, but don’t know. So, again, your condemnation of believing in things one doesn’t know was hypocritical.
You don’t fully know anything to be true. Nobody does. So, again if you ever say something is true, you are again showing you believe in something you don’t know.
It is not true to you it is beautiful; it is true you find it beautiful. You may believe its beautiful, but that doesn’t make it so. Again, you believe in something you don’t actually know. So, this post you made was untrue:
You clearly find intelligence in believing–or I hope you do–since I have shown you believe in many things you don’t know. So, I’d rethink whaty you said about believing essentially being assuming. Considering you do obviously believe in things, you know what that would make you.
Hmm, your first response is a little weird “How do I know love if I don’t know what it is”.
-I said I know what love is, why would you assume I don’t? I don’t need to prove I know love to you, nor anyone else. But I can attempt to convince you that I know love, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll understand either. You simply are assuming I believe in love, without making much of a case as to how or why. You should word your critique more carefully and ask questions before you place a judgment like you did, because you’re simply assuming.
Your second response is:
“Again that means you believe in it, but you don’t know it.”
-Really, how did you come to that conclusion? You’re lacking clarity of your judgment here. This applies to your statement on my response morality as well. You’re just making claims, not providing reason to back your claims.
No, I don’t find intelligence in believing. Perhaps you will find the same when this conversation is done, but by the way it is going, you seem to be a believer by default. Something I would critique as not very intelligent. You have shown this to me through your hasty assumptions, through your lack of reason in your judgments, and still somehow expect that you provided a valid response that would make me change my mind… I have minimal hope that this conversation will be going far at this point.
My response isn’t “a little weird,” but your saying it is sure is. My response was cogent and logically sound.
I know you said what love is, but you didn’t show me how. You yourself admitted love is just a concept that has no proven basis in reality. So, I don’t just assume you don’t know it. i know you don’t know it just like I know someone doesn’t know God. And yes, you do need to prove you know it if you want to convince anybody. Until you do, all you can truly say is you believe what love is.
You, yourself, correctly said “right and wrong, is a judgment.” So, you yourself admitted you don’t actually know right or wrong. So my clarity of judgement was perfectly fine and I perfectly backed my claim with your own statement. Thank you. And right and wrong can’t be fully known, so you were right to say it depends on belief.
If you don’t, then you don’t think you’re very intelligent. And at this point, I don’t blame you. You have shown you believe in love, right and wrong, truth, and beauty in art without knowing any of them at all. So, you are the believer by default, and I wouldn’t blame your critique of yourself as such… 
I have made no hasty assumptions nor shown any lack of reason in my judgment. Now you, yourself, are making false hasty claims you don’t and can’t back up in any way. So, thank you for showing you can’t even counter my sound and cogent arguments and critiques of your “thinking.” All I’ve done is show what a complete hypocrite you are. I certainly haven’t been impressed with your conversation or poor “argument,” so I have no reason to continue this conversation any further.
“i know you don’t know it just like I know someone doesn’t know God.”
No, you don’t. Love is not comparable to “God, gods or god”.
Love is an emotion. We experience it. You assume to know I don’t know love, simply because I haven’t elaborated enough. It’s a hasty judgment, an assumption as such.
It’s absolutely comparable to God. You have no idea “Love” really exists. It could just be a chemical reaction you have that you call “Love.” You have no idea it’ is actually love and you have no idea what love really is.
No, love is more than just an emotion. When people say they “Love” someone they aren’t just saying they have an emotional feeling for someone; they are saying they are feeling something great deeper than just emotion. And how do you know you experience love? As, I said before, your body may just be going through some weird chemical reaction.
And I made no hasty judgment or assumption. Again you make your unsupported hasty claims. i don’t just assume you don’t know love; I know you don’t because you have failed to even show you know exactly what love is. So, thanks for supporting my argument.
Try again, dude. You seem to like the conversation…
No, its not comparable to God. God is a conscious entity that may or may not exist, that created the universe. Love is a concept that describes an emotion humans feel, just like hate. Love exists as an abstraction of actual physical and conscious experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Just like any emotion, hate, jealousy, anger. Do you find those as mysterious as well, or is it just love? Perhaps you are the one who doesn’t know love, and this is merely your projection. If so, that would be unfortunate.
Anything you “Feel” on that level is an emotion. I recommend you learning what love is, perhaps the wiki link will help you.
While there are different aspects of love and type of love, the one I am referring to is the emotion. If you are referring to another sense of the word, then we’re speaking two different languages. Namely : It can refer to an emotion of a strong attraction and personal attachment.[1]
Whether “chemical reactions” are involved are irrelevant to knowing what love it, by experiencing it or having love. Just the same with anger, terror, happiness, hate. Chemical reactions and feelings are involved in those, and there are varying degrees of intensity, but nonetheless, intense love is still love, and love, is still love.
“i don’t just assume you don’t know love; I know you don’t because you have failed to even show you know exactly what love is”
That is not knowledge; that is an assumption. Simply because I haven’t shown you exactly what love is, doesn’t mean I don’t know what it is, this is a hasty judgment on your part. My knowledge of knowing love is not dependent upon me showing you. I have shown it to others; typing it online the definition of it and description of it, is knowledge of love; experiencing it, well, Is knowing love. You expect me to show you that through the internets? It seems you don’t even understand what kind of “proof” you are asking for.
I will tell you that one of the purest forms of love I have experienced is the love of my children. That is where the empathy and sacrifice of love comes to fruition the most for me. It’s different from the love of a woman, in that there isn’t sexual desire attached to it, which isn’t necessarily love but can be confused as such. Most parents should be able to agree with the sentiment of this statement, as is probably unable to be understood entirely by most non parents. Of course, parents who aren’t involved in their child’s life are an exception, they’re not really parents… so much.
When you receive joy and happiness from vicariously seeing the person you love experiencing joy and happiness, it is an indication of love. It is even a greater indication of love when the person you love experiences joy and happiness at the cost of your own self sacrifice. Perhaps you understand that yes? Perhaps you don’t. If not, I would say you truly do not know what love is, and assume to think that everyone else must not know either.
Yes, it is comparable to God, even though you keep erroneously saying it’s not. And you just supported my argument for me. Thanks. The fact love is an abstraction of unclear physical and conscious experiences means it can’t be fully known. At this point, I’m not surprised you can’t grasp that. And, as I said before, love is more than just an emotion. You really need to look up the world. And I feel love from my wife and kids every day. I saw you brought up your kids below. Based on your terrible arguments so far; I have no doubt mine are much smarter and more remarkable than yours.
You don’t get to decide the definition of love. Again, as I said on another thread, I have serious doubts about your education levels. Love applies to all of its definitions, not just your limited ones. And its clear you don’t full know any of them.
No, chemical reactions are not irrelevant. Now you are revealing your ignorance about biology and chemistry as well. As long as unknown chemical reactions are involved in love, you can’t fully know them…end of story.
Yes it is knowledge, something you have shown a considerable lack of. I have given you numerous chances to show you know exactly what love is, and you haven’t done so. So, you clearly don’t know what love is and can’t show otherwise. That’s not a hasty judgment, its cold hard truth.
Blah, Blah, Blah. You still can’t prove your knowledge of it. If you could have done so, you would have. You haven’t, so you clearly can’t. And I don’t care about your kids. As I said earlier, i’m sure they’re not as special as mine. And this is is the end of our conversation. Honestly, I’ve grown bored of your constantly repeating your same erroneous “arguments” over and over. i have already shown you have been completely wrong, so I have no reason to speak with you further. So, I’m putting you on my Foes list and on ignore. Goodbye.
P.s. If you truly love yourself, you should actually take a philosophy course. It might help.
Putting someone on ignore because you don’t like their argument, how weak and spineless.
Moved to Sandbox
Peripheral, you state “The fact love is an abstraction of unclear physical and conscious experiences means it can’t be fully known”
Nothing can be fully known. I disagree it is unclear as well, it is clear enough. Simply because we don’t know how many atoms make up a tree, or know all the molecules inside the tree, doesn’t mean we don’t know if its a tree or not. You’re standard for knowing love is as ridiculous as that, which shows the ridiculous nature of your entire argument.
The rest of your comments are only indicative of your assuming nature, which is what got you in this mess in the first place.