PaulSacramento wrote:BryanH wrote:True, but using don't is subjective, you can't say that someone else doesn't know something UNLESS you KNOW that they don't.
Well, they can always prove me wrong, right?
Depends on what you view as proof right?
If you say something subjective like "You don't know God", you are expressing YOUR opinion.
I counter with," Yes I do".
You ask how and I counter with " God has revealed Himself to me".
Whether you accept that as proof is irrelevant because you stated a subjective opinion and I answered with a subjective answer.
If your question/opinion is valid, so is my answer.
Excellent, Paul. And
this is why I said Bryan is either being extremely arrogant or extremely irrational (or both).
"You can't know anything about God" is obviously self-defeating.
"You don't know anything about God" may or may not be self-defeating, depending on the force of "you". It could either mean:
1) "You, Paul, know nothing about God. I know this because I compare your statements with what I know to be true, and everything you say is false." OR,
2) "You, human, know nothing about God. I know this because I know that human beings know thing about God."
In the first case, his claim that you have zero knowledge of God is a claim on
your knowledge, which is pure hubris. In the second case, 'you' is a general 'you', and therefore is a universal claim that would apply to himself as well. As such, the second claim is self-defeating, and is thus irrational.
So when you go on to point out here that the only way not to be self-defeating is to make it a claim on your knowledge, you are absolutely correct in pointing out that he's merely expressing an opinion. You can easily counter with, "Yes, I do," and you've made no more or less valid a claim that he has. In fact, Bryan's statement is just silly, because he is making a very strong claim he cannot possibly prove. In fact, we all know that he really means that you--as an individual--don't have any knowledge of God
because he thinks that knowledge of God is impossible. You can see that in his silly argument that everything we say about God requires us to make certain assumptions. So he's really arguing against the ability of any statement about God to have a knowable truth value, since he is arguing about the assumptions that underlie all such statements. But as such, his own statements are equally invalid, and his argument is proven again to be self-defeating.
Now, bluntly, this is why I said this is just his schtick. Anyone who is going to argue that "you can't know anything about" some subject is just being an absurd skeptic. You aren't going to get anywhere with him, because he's choosing to be irrational and is not willing to play by the same rules. Toy with him however long you will. But, in my own estimation, you're wasting your time. If I thought that anyone here (or anyone lurking here) was taking his arguments seriously, I'd engage. I don't. Perhaps I'm wrong, but in my estimation, there's no reason to let anybody tell you why you ought to or ought not believe in any subject when their basic position is that you can't know anything about that subject.
So good show, here. Keep it up, if you like. It's enjoyable reading, if nothing else.
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