M*** wrote: Not so, I do not believe the pages themselves to hold power or proof reality. Once again a false assertion based primarily on your empericistic view.
If the Bible is your "axiom", as you state below, then presumably one must be able to read the Bible, hear it spoken aloud, or have its contents conveyed to them through signs given via the sense of touch, as in the way Helen Keller was taught. You are putting the cart before the horse. If you want to convince me that the Bible is the perfect word of God, as you say, I have to read (or have its contents conveyed to me through some other sense) the Bible in order to see if your claim is true, and in order to do that I need at least one working sense. If I cannot trust my senses, which is the main thrust of your argument, then how can I trust what I read with my eyes? Think of what you are proposing: you claim that the senses are untrustworthy, and simultaneously claim that the only thing we can trust is the word of God as put down in the Bible, which cannot be received and understood without the senses.
As someone else said, the presuppositionalist arguments are sometimes brilliantly presented, but this is not one of those occasions. At bottom you are defending an indefensible claim: that knowledge can only be received through revelation, not through empirical observation. Serial killers, the mentally ill, cult leaders, fraudulent televangelists, psychics, and presuppositionalists all make claims to receiving knowledge through some type of revelation. Revelation and delirium are synonymous.
M*** wrote: And once again, my questions are not aimed at proving the Bible. My questions are aimed at proving you cannot know something by means of empericism.
Look at what you're writing. Your aim is to prove that we cannot know something with the material we receive from the senses,and how do you propose to do this? I presume your proof will be in the form of words appearing on my computer screen, no? You intend to "prove" to us that we can't know something through the senses, by appealing to our senses, and by presupposing that our senses are working properly enough for us to read and understand your "proof". You cannot prove anything to us on this board without presupposing the efficacy of the senses and without also depending on the efficacy of our senses, let alone "prove" that one cannot know anything by means of empericism!
Let me put it another way: the only way for you to help your position is by withdrawing from the discussion now and not typing another word, because with each word you type you are taking things for granted: and those happen to be the very things you are trying to pooh-pooh through your magnanimous presence here.
And you're getting nowhere by tossing this "know" word around. With each and every word you type, you are entirely dependent on the fact that there will be someone on the other end who will "know" what those words mean. You seek to show us how little we can "know" by being one-hundred percent confident that we do, in fact, know something: you are confident that there will be someone out there who will "know" enough about the English language to make sense of what you're typing.
It's all utterly pointless anyway since your worldview demands that you grant the existence of an objective reality and grant that we can gain knowledge of this external world through our senses and through our capacity to reason. It so happens that my worldview accepts all that as well. What you need to do is demonstrate how the external world would be any less real to me than to you, and why my senses or my capacity to reason are less efficient than yours, simply because I lack belief in God. But then again, no, that isn't your intention. You already know that you and I are on relatively equal footing in regard to our senses and our capacity to make sense of the material we acquire through them. That isn't the problem for you.
The problem for you is that I do not recognize God as being responsible for my ability to adapt to my world and survive in it. What you need to do is demonstrate how your belief in Christian theology gives you a more rational epistemological foundation, which is what the presup argument is supposed to do but which presuppers never actually get around to doing. They talk about it a lot, but they never do it. No one has managed to be even remotely convincing when it comes to that. All we get are a bunch of pointless questions which are designed to undermine the reliability of the senses and of human reasoning, questions which depend entirely upon the reliable senses and reasoning ability of those being questioned!
It's sheer absurdity.
M*** wrote: The proof of reality lies within revelation, not empericism.
Like I said, mystics throughout the ages have made similar claims. So have serial killers, various cult leaders, psychics suckering people out of their money on television, unscrupulous evangelists, and all sorts of people occupying mental wards throughout the world. Yet not a single one of them could possibly give any "proof" of the veracity of their claims without appealing to the senses of the people they were trying to convince, or without relying on the capacity of those very same people to "know" what in blazes they were blathering on about.
M** wrote: You cannot prove revelation to be faulty.
Which means you cannot prove any "revelation", so-called, to be faulty. The Christians aren't the only ones who claim to receive knowledge via revelation, in case you haven't heard. Yeah, I know, those other revelations don't count. Of course, what was I thinking.
M** wrote: You cannot test it by your means of obtaining truth. I can however, prove empericism to be faulty by one's own testimony. You cannot define or explain how or why something is real without further adding to the list of questions as to how or why. My revelation of what is reality cannot be proven faulty and is not under obligation to verfiy itself by means of the senses. You could say, "but how do you know you have had revelation?". My response would then be, the revelation itself was verification of it's own validity. It doesn't matter if I can prove or show it, it is a revelation.
If I claim that I received a revelation only this morning, you would not be able to gainsay my claim by virtue of what you typed above. My claim is unassailable. And yet if I claim that I have a cup of coffee here beside me, this is something you can tear apart? You can claim to have "revelations" and yet are not required to give any evidence for it whatsoever. I'm to take your word for it, no questions asked. But if I claim that my feet are cold, I am making an unsupportable claim? What if I said that I had a revelation that my feet were cold? Would you find that more believable?
Your kind of thinking belongs in the Dark Ages.
M** wrote: ...belief in the Bible comes by revelation which cannot be found or proven faulty.
Pointless claim, the result of fantasy and the fear of death.
M** wrote: Did you come up with that one by means of the senses?
What do you mean by "Did"? What do you mean by "you"? What do you mean by "come"? What do you mean by "up"? What do you mean by "with"? What do you mean by "that"? What do you mean by "one"? What do you mean by "by"? What do you mean by "means"? What do you mean by "of"? What do you mean by "the"? What do you mean by "senses"? Please explain.
What's the difference between a banana?
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