Phat writes:
There are three basic levels of knowing.
You left out the zeroth level: Knowing what somebody
claims.
I never heard of Carmelo Anthony until I read your post. I know nothing about him except what you claim. I have no corroborating evidence from an outside source.
A lot of people are in that same position regarding your claims about God.
Knowing about someone.
Knowing "about" somebody makes no distinction between real people and fictional characters. You probably know as much about Carmelo Anthony as you do about Frodo Baggins. Why do you "believe" that one is real and one is not?
Meeting someone.
When you meet somebody, you have only
their claims about who they are. You've proboably met somebody who is always making up stories about himself. How can you know which of his stories are true and which are not? (Hint: outside, corroborating evidence.)
And even
if there really is a Melo, how do you know the version you met is genuine? What if Melo has a double that he sends out to mingle with the "ordinary" people? Or what if somebody poses as Melo just for the attention? Or what if some deranged person really thinks he
is Melo?
Day to Day
Ever hear about the wife who found out her husband was leading a double life? She said, "I never knew you at all." The closer you think you are to somebody, the more likely you are to be taken in.
You've heard me say this before: all we have is our perceptions. Whatever God "is", we can only "see" Him in anthropomorphic terms. We can only "know" Him in terms that allow for mistaken identity, fraud, insanity, etc.
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