Gary Childress wrote:ken wrote:No I will not, but what I will do is explain to you that each and EVERY one of those sentences I write to you that end with a question mark are clarifying questions posed to you awaiting an answer.
Thanks for the favor, ken. In any case I dug through your post and came up with the following questions you appear to be asking (I've tried to discern what exactly the questions are and apologize if I got any of them wrong):
Firstly I will have to apologize for not listing what my questions were. I have to admit I did not follow my own advice and I made an assumption myself, which turned out to be totally wrong. Based on my previous experiences only on the very rarest of occasion has any one ever really bothered to answer my clarifying questions. I obviously made the wrong assumption here. Apologies again gary.
Gary Childress wrote:1. "Unless you know every one of us, then how are you so sure of this answer?" [I assume your question here is how do I know none of us know for sure what are "true" and "false" scriptures, prophets etc.]
ANSWER: I only know what you know through my own experience and I can say for a fact based on my own experience that when it comes to things concerning "gods" there are few if any "facts" out there to be apprehended in any kind of concrete manner. Therefore what is "true" or "false" scripture is ultimately only conjecture. For all we know God could be a completely indifferent and uncaring being and all the various "scriptures" are just pipe dreams arrived at from eating too many magic mushrooms.
AND, for all we know one person might know what God really and truly is, and thus also knows what scriptures are false or not.
For starters the assumption you made in brackets was correct, but unfortunately your ANSWER had nothing at all to do with that assumption nor with answering my question. Your answer actually jumped straight to the wrong conclusion based on and from another assumption of yours, which was incorrect this time, this assumption was in regards to yourself: If I do not yet know something, then no one else could know it also. You begin, "I only know what you know", which I think you will find is also totally incorrect. You then go on wrongly to pose this incorrect assumption as a
fact, which it obviously is not.
This is your second post in this thread;
Gary Childress wrote:HexHammer wrote:Don't blame God, blame the false scriptures and false prophet that has mislead the masses.
How do you know what scriptures, and prophets are "false". Answer, none of us do.
You proceeded to directly answer your own question with; "
None of us do". Since your question was posed to hex, I posed my question towards you regarding your answer; "Unless you know every one of us, then how are you so sure of this answer?" Which, literally, means what it is I am asking, How do you know that
none of us do know what scriptures and prophets are false? Forget about whether scriptures and prophets are false or not, and forget about whether god/s exists or not, I was, literally, asking you, how are you so sure that "none of us do" know? In other words how are you so sure that you know what each and every one of us does know or does not know?
JUST MAYBE there is one human being, somewhere, who does KNOW. That one, however, may not yet be able to express this knowledge, or maybe this one is just not willing to share and express this knowledge yet. I was just questioning your apparently rigid answer and response of:
None of us do know, that is all. You can not know what knowledge another human being has or not if they have not yet shared what they, themselves, know.
Gary Childress wrote:2. "How do you know none of us know what scriptures are false or not?"
ANSWER: By "knowledge" I take it you mean knowing something is true as opposed to being correct by guessing. Is it possible that some have guessed correctly what scriptures or prophets are false and which are true? Sure. But that is not knowledge that is a guess.
For starters this time your assumption is completely wrong. You even made the mistake of using the word "knowledge" when I NEVER even referred to the word 'knowledge' and this led you onto making the assumption about "guessing".
Thus we have to come back to my original question of, How do
you KNOW? How do
you know what another human being knows or does not know?
Just maybe one human being has not made a guess but actually does HAVE the
knowledge, and, is just maybe learning how to express exactly how they gained that true and right knowledge. You certainly do not have the "knowledge" of what knowledge ALL other human beings have. At the very best you, yourself, are making a guess, which obviously you may be correct or incorrect.
By the way I actually wrote both the number 1. and 2. questions, to the one quote, in two slightly different ways because
I knew my question would not be understood and would be misinterpreted just as you have proven here successfully. HOW
I knew this before it even took place can and will only be able to be understood after what it is that I am actually questioning you about is fully understood.
Do you fully understand what I was and am asking of you yet? If not, then I will try again.
How do you KNOW what others do know or do not know? There can only be roughly two answers. Either;
1. Your answer is, "I do not know". Or,
2. You start by explaining, "How i know this is ..."
Gary Childress wrote:3. "Why do you (whoever) refer to and picture God the way you do? Is solely because that is what you have been previously exposed to or because you somehow KNOW what is so accurately right and true?"
ANSWER: I believe here you are referring to my use of the word "s/he" meaning of undetermined gender. I used it because English doesn't have a neuter personal pronoun. Unless you prefer I use the term "it", then I'm not sure what you want me to do here.
Your assumption here is correct, I was referring to the s/he comment but I was also referring to what I wrote; that is
the picture a person paints of God. I was asking in general to whoever wants to answer the general question; Why do people refer to and paint a picture of a thing, of which they really have absolutely no idea about other than what they have been told or have experienced but not seen, yet refer to that thing as some
certain thing. I was asking why do they do that, THE WAY THEY DO? In other words what mechanisms in them makes them do that and why do they do it?
You could have used the english word 'God' as neuter personal pronoun. You could have used the word God seeing that God does not have a gender. By the way, and on a side note, I just noticed will I was looking up the definitions of some of the words you use that it is alleged that the 'Spirit' is a neuter word in greek, which will come in very handy as more evidence and proof for what I actually want to express. These very deep and delving into discussions always lead Me on to learning more and more. Thanks for this gary.
I do not understand what you are getting at with your third sentence; "Unless you prefer I use the term "it", then I'm not sure what you want me to do here." Obviously, IF, and only, if I prefer you to use the term "it", the that is what I would prefer, so surely you could be sure what I want you to do here. That is IF I wanted to use the term "it", which I do not. I WANT you to use whatever words and terms you like and want to you use. You are free to do whatever you like and that is the way that I truly prefer. I, however, can and will question human beings WHY they use the words and terms they use if I think they are not correct. I do this in a truly open manner in order so that they gain a better perspective of where they are actually coming from.
Gary Childress wrote:4. "How do you KNOW this?"
ANSWER: I believe here you are asking "how do I know I have no clue or idea at all about God (however, I'm not entirely sure if that's what you are asking). Suffice to say I'm pretty sure I don't know much of anything about God, anymore than I know what color your underwear is since you haven't disclosed it to me. I also don't know what God thinks. Since there are allegedly false prophets and scriptures out there, it would be like asking me what you think based on what a third party told me and after someone told me that there were people out there who misinterpreted what you said to them or even made things up incorrectly.
Exactly.
So, the real and true answer IS "I do not know". Nothing to be ashamed about in answering that way to absolutely any question, because how could any human being KNOW something, for sure, if they have not learned it nor have not had first hand experience of it? No human being is born with conscious knowledge of any thing, therefore absolutely ALL knowledge is learned 'along the way'. And, if a human being has not been exposed to some thing, then there is no way that they could, literally, know (of) it nor have knowledge of it.
By the way your assumption here is wrong, although what you wrote in brackets is right. Here is a bit of advice that you can take or leave but instead of trying to guess and assume what my questions are actually referring to, I find it much quicker, simpler, and easier to just remain completely by (and) asking clarifying questions. That way I can never be wrong. I can only become wiser, much quicker, simpler, and more easily.
I wrote, "How do you KNOW this?" directly under
your rigid quote, "God created gullible people." So, what I was asking here is, How do you KNOW, for sure, God created gullible people? Surely, I thought it would be much more obvious that if I ask a clarifying question DIRECTLY UNDER another's quote, then I am asking the question in reference directly to that quote than to anything else. Making assumptions, which can and do end up being wrong, ends up take up so much more time than is really necessary.
Gary Childress wrote:5. "How did God supposedly do this?"
ANSWER: I'm not sure what you are asking here. Would appreciate a clarification.
Thank you so much for that. This is so refreshing to actually be asked for clarification my Self. Also did you notice how much quicker, simpler, and easier that was? Anyway, this question was also directly under your quote "God created gullible people" SO again this question was directly in response to your quote. Beside that I thought what I was ACTUALLY asking here was given as a clue in my next and directly following paragraph;
"If you can answer both of those questions with a sound, valid argument explaining both of them thoroughly, then I will accept that you do KNOW that God created gullible people. Until then I will just remain open to the fact that you may not actually know this to be true and that you are just assuming and/or believing this to be true, based solely on your own past previous experiences and what you, yourself, have been exposed to. By the way that is not to say it is not true. I am just open to all that you have to say."
Are you sure of what I am asking here now?
Gary Childress wrote:6. "Also, let me guess you believe that you, yourself, are not gullible, and that only other people are gullible, am I right?"
ANSWER: Wrong. I am just as gullible as anyone else may be out there when it comes to matters concerning God and what are or aren't God's intentions. I admit it. You, on the other hand, seem to think you possess some special ability to know things concerning what are or aren't false scriptures or prophets because you literally claim so in your post.
Thanks for admitting that.
You are partly right and partly wrong here. Yes I did literally claim to know things concerning what are or are not false scriptures or prophets, but it certainly did NOT claim that I posses some "special ability". The only thing that is 'special' about this ability that I have is it is unique to only the human species. No other animal possess this ability. Also, this ability is uniquely special in that each and EVERY human being shares this ability equally. I do not personally possess more of this ability. I just have, because of what I have been exposed to previously, stumbled upon and learned a way to change the way I look and see things now from the way I used to look and see things previously. This is nothing that no other human being can not learn also.
BTW: I'm agnostic so my views concerning God and our relevant knowledge about him/her/it come with the caveat that there even exists a God to begin with.[/quote]
'i' am a 'person', which is the thoughts and feelings within a human body, and is sometimes also referred to and known as a 'human being'. 'i' do not label this personal self as anything else than that. 'i' also (try to) remain completely open always so that i can continually keep on learning and becoming wiser.
'I', on the other hand, am some thing different, which is for a much later discussion.
Again, thank you so much for the effort in finding my questions and answering them. That really surprised me, quite pleasantly, and I have gained a lot more insight and knowledge from this.
Also, I noticed you wrote an apology thread to two others regarding this thread, which you posted just after your reply to me here. Just out of curiosity, while you were reading, tediously I am sure with the way I write, and going through my writings looking for my questions, (again apologies for that), did my response to bobevenson trigger anything at all regarding that apology? You may not have even read that post but I am just wondering.