View Single Post
Old 04-25-2012, 09:03 AM   #129
photon
The new goggles also do nothing.
 
photon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Calgary
Exp:
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vulcan View Post
No belief isn't the same as knowing. Splitting hairs in some peoples eyes but I make the distinction.
Oh definitely. Belief may be informed by knowledge or it may not be, but belief can be independent of knowledge.

Belief is the psychological state in which a person holds a premise to be true.

Whereas knowledge involves substantiation of that premise, evidence, something you can demonstrate unambiguously to others.

So for the graph you mentioned a gnostic theist, that means a person is both a theist (they believe, they hold the god premise to be true), AND they claim knowledge (they believe because they know (or think they know anyway)).

That's why the four quadrants of the graph, because you can have any combination of both belief (just holding the god proposition to be true) and knowledge (claiming to either know for sure, or not know for sure).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vulcan View Post
Belief often entails second hand information, like in a holy book or a religious leader.
True, though it doesn't have to; often belief is simply the default position on a topic because you were raised in an environment with that belief.

Belief is just holding a premise to be true, regardless of why you hold it to be true.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vulcan View Post
If you trust the book or say a person, you can say you are 100% certain you believe there is a god but Gnostic means you know and to know you have to experience it for yourself.
Right, so you believe, and that belief is derived from knowledge (leaving out the question of the validity of that knowledge, I would argue a lot of people that believe and think they have knowledge actually don't have knowledge).
__________________
Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
photon is offline   Reply With Quote