[Vision2020] Poll on Idahostatesman.com

[josephc at mail.wsu.edu]

Ok, now I'm going to say something with which everyone will disagree. This
should make for a wonderful ending to a somewhat dreadful day. (The
Yankees, you see, have lost to the Angles. I've been a fan since the
mid-sixties, back when the Yankees were simply awful, so please have some
sympathy, all you Yankee-haters out there!) Warning to all: Philosophy to
follow!!!

Chas you write:

> I will happily call the spider Charlotte.
> However, all I was trying to say is that I
> perceive that the spider has an advantage over us.
> The spider, at least, indisputably KNOWS that
> we exist, even if all of our attributes
> must be surmised.  We, on the other hand,
> know nothing about God, and must surmise
> even His/Her very existence.

How is it that the spider "indisputably KNOWS that we exist"? Because he
sees us, feels us, etc.? Do you really think such evidence is
indisputable? Can't the spider be dreaming? Can't the spider be in the
Matrix world? You know the possibilities, Chas, so I won't belabor the
point. No one has indisputable knowledge of anything. (Note that I am not
claiming that no one knows anything. I'm only saying that knowledge is
never indisputable.)

Let's turn to God. First, many people say that they experience God. Some
other people think that those who claim to experience God are crazy. But
you have to admit that alleged experiences are pretty hard to refute! If
someone says that he has witnessed God, I'm not sure that "You're crazy"
is an effective retort (even if it is true)! And the same criticism may be
given by other spiders when Charlotte claims to have experience of us, as
well.

Others accept some form of either pantheism or panentheism. The former
says that God just is the universe; the latter says that God includes yet
is something more than the universe. Certainly, we can know that the
universe exists. Our knowledge here is no better or worse than Charlotte's
knowledge of us, is it? Perhaps I'm not willing to say that such knowledge
is indisputable -- nothing is indisputable, I claim -- but that doesn't
mean that the existence of the universe isn't more indisputable than
anything else that we might believe. If God just is or is part of the
universe, then knowledge of God is equally indisputable. Thus, part of the
answer to the question -- "Can we know if God exists?" -- depends on what
we mean by 'God.' Part of the reason that we have difficulty in answering
the question -- or in determining whether or not the question can be
answered -- is that there is a huge disagreement about what we mean by the
term.

Many people regard both pantheism and panentheism as heretical. It is
worth noting that most of the people who were burned at the stake in the
middle ages were pantheists, not atheists. Let us suppose that we accept a
spiritual God, something that we can bring home to mother. How does
Charlotte's knowledge of us stack up to our knowledge of a spiritual,
personal God?

This is where things get very tricky. You'll find that whether we're
talking about beliefs of material beings or beliefs of spirits two things
are true: (1) neither is entirely supported by experience, and (2) neither
is completely without any (alleged) empirical support. In both cases there
are people who say that they have the requisite experiences; in both cases
you'll find people who say that the experiences are nothing but illusions
and offer other hypotheses to discount them: "you are dreaming," "you are
insane," "you are in the Matrix world!" Look at the history of philosophy.
It is littered with idealists, folks who claim that material objects do
not exist. What are their arguments? They tend to point out that the items
of direct experience -- that of which we are most certain -- are nothing
but ideas. According to idealists, material objects are "theoretical
entities" -- or worse!

We shouldn't be too quick to draw conclusions from any of the above
observations. I am certainly NOT trying to argue for any extreme
skepticism or radical relativism. The point is that justifying knowledge
claims is difficult, no matter what the subject is. In even the simplest
of cases it involves something more than experience and stating just what
this something else is is difficult. It is difficult whether discussing
scientific knowledge, religious knowledge, or plain-old empirical
knowledge.

This is why respect for the opinions of others is the most important, and
the most difficult, thing to attain.

Joe Campbell

PS I should point out that nothing I say above is inconsistent with my
previous comments about intelligent design. But I'll wait until Doug
quotes some of my comments out of context in order to elaborate on this
point.