I'd like to nominate Catholic Scientist for a string of posts in reply to Straggler on the
Percy is a Deist - Now what's the difference between a deist and an atheist? thread. Straggler's position on subjective evidence is unrealistic, and CS demonstrates this with steady assurance. Perhaps
Message 299 shows this to best effect:
Why is it convincing?
Because it seems real.
Why does the absence of objective evidence suddenly make subjective "evidence" even potentially valid or reliable?
Because that is all that's left.
Can subjective evidence ever be reliable?
Not reliable enough for something to be "verified as true" but reliable enough to convince a person to believe something is true.
Can we ever actually use it to distinguish truth from falsehood and if not why do you deem it to have any worth at all?
I think we can use it to distiguish truth from falsehood to certain degrees. I'm not the only one who believes they have subjectively experienced god. When many people share experiences and corroborate, we can rule out some things from the experience. I think the IPU can be ruled out because nobody has actually experienced it and it is obviously made-up. I don't think our corroboration can be used to say that the subjective experiece is from Jesus, himself. But I do think we can say that we are on to
something. A very general god-like thingy seems to fit in a loose sense with the experiences that people are having so I don't think it has been ruled out like the IPU.
What CS shows is that the fact of experience does indeed make a difference.
Enjoy.
we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.
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