The Art of Spiritual War

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it? This question, which at first sight might not seem difficult, is really one of the most difficult that can be asked. When we have realized the obstacles in the way of a straightforward and confident answer, we shall be well launched on the study of philosophy - for philosophy is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realising all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas.

It is with this paragraph that Bertrand Russel begins his famous essay “The Problems of Philosophy.”

There are many less consistent, (and less humble) men around these days, and were we to listen to them, it would seem that there are no problems left in philosophy that matter, or cause “us” any problems. Such men have settled on their empirically based nominalism, and are quite content to continue on in their lives as if such “problems” no longer existed.

As Mohammed Ali said, “It aint braggin’ if you can do it…” The sad thing though is that they cannot “do it.” They are just as stuck in the quagmire of uncertainty as any man ever has been; and while granted, there has been much pragmatic and utilitarian success with the hard sciences lately, these “problems of philosophy” still loom overhead like a storm cloud, waiting to drench the unsuspecting modernists…hopefully awakening them from their philosophical slumbers.

What is knowledge? Is there any knowledge in the world that is so certain that no man can doubt it?

I cannot, in one article address all the problems of philosophy, nor could I hope to narrow it down to an exhaustive look at even one, however, I can hope (within reason) to highlight the issue of epistemology, and show that until man submits to his creator (The Christian God) such questions about knowledge will always exist, and certainty will always allude even the most careful of philosophers.

To Begin:

We do not pick and choose our views. Our beliefs are tangled in a web or “matrix” of many other beliefs. Change one, and others will necessarily change as well. None of our beliefs are held over and apart from any of the other ones. This is especially true for our beliefs concerning knowledge.(1)

In light of this, it is only reasonable to critique entire systems, or “world-views.” We must pit the unbelievers way of looking at the world, with the Christians way of looking at the world, and see which can actually account for…(in this essay particularly we will be discussing)…knowledge.(2)

Men have tried to account for knowledge in many different ways, although upon close examination, we can see, that there are really, only a few different ways that it has traditionally been tried. I suppose there isn’t much “epistemological wiggle room” when it comes to these matters.

Descartes, and the continental rationalists, all considered their own minds and rational processes to be the key that unlocked certainty. Hume, Berkely, and the Brittish empiricist all considered sense perceptions to be the foundation of knowledge. There is no doubt that none of these men were able to ultimately account for knowledge. Nor (in my opinion) has anyone since.

My apologetic for the Christian God, will necessarily take on different forms in considering which approach my particular opponent tries to take. It is a “living” evangel, one that must be tailored to the individual who challenges me. However, given the lack of “epistemological wiggle room” out there, it is prudent for me to study the weaknesses of the main systems of secular philosophy in order to refute whatever version I am presented with.

So I must wait patiently until my opponent responds, and details for us his (or her) particular philosophical system, in order that I can point out the utter futility burried within it. It is the contention of the Christian, that all systems of sinful man, at base, must presuppose the Christian philosophical system of thought in order to be rational. As Romans 1 says (starting in verse 18) sinful man has no excuse NOT to know God. He surpresses the truth of God with lies. These lies, are the various philosophical systems posited in the secular world.

But what IS the Christian worldview? How does the Christian account for knowledge?

When presenting the Christian system of philosophical thought, it is important to focus on a few key areas. Creation ex nhilio, the triune nature of God, and the creator creature distinction.

The Christian God created man completely (into) nothing. As Van Til explains:

"We said above that God needed no such thing as non-being over against Himself in order to define Himself in comparison with it. Christianity takes non-being seriously. In discussing the question of non-being we hasten to distinguish between God’s relation to non-being and man’s relation to non-being. For God non-being is nothing in itself; for man non-being is the field of God’s possible operation. Since non-being is nothing in itself for God, God had to create, if He wished to create at all “out of nothing.” It would be better perhaps to say that God created the universe into nothing. " - Van Til “Defense of the Faith” chapter 2 pg. 26.

This means that whatever exists is of two things. It is either Creator, or creation. This is commonly called the Creator Creature distinction.

In God we live, move, breathe, and have our being. (See the book of Acts.) Since God is sovereignly in control of all things, and causes “whatsoever comes to pass” then in like manner, all of our thoughts rest in Him. All of our knowledge is intimately dependent on God. He has created us in His image, and while I’ll not discuss the full meaning of this, for now it is important to see that…all men have the ability to reason, even sinful men, due to our dependence on the creator, and our likeness of Him.

In our lives, we experience a plurality of experiences, and yet, we also see a unity among these particulars. This “one and the many” problem is only reconciled by an appeal to the Christian God, who is Himself, a “concrete universal.” A unity that is totally one with the plurality. Bound up within the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, is the ability of man to reason rationally, and hold to a Sovereign and divinely interested God.

Oh yes…man can know. Man can know all that which can be known, and he can know it with the fallible accuracy of a man.

Thus are the traditional “problems” of philosophy answered for the Christian.

In ALL things Christ.

“For in Him, are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” - Colossians 2:3

“The fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise instruction.” - Proverbs 1:7

I pray that God may bless this discussion, should there be one.

Shotgun

(1)Should anyone wish to dispute this claim, they simply must present ONE belief that they hold without necessarily having to hold another belief along side of it. A common objection I hear usually takes the form of an appeal to Descartes “cogito” argument, “I think therefore I am.” But consider this carefully. You must know what “I” is, and you must also know what “thinking” is, and you must know what “am” is. There are many things you must believe in tandem before believing that “I am.”

(2) The presuppositional argument goes on to contrast many other areas of worldviews, such as ethical foundations, and metaphysical considerations as well, but those particular areas will be beyond the scope of my discussion here, unless they come up in relation to the topic of epistemology, (which they no doubt will to some degree.)

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I am assuming that this s meant to be our discussion?
We never decided who would get to make the first and last post [-X .
I can’t quite make sense of your unstructured ramblings, and I get the feeling that you didn’t understand when I asked you to present your “worldview.” If you cannot give any rationale at all, then I will be forced to dismiss you (a simple a priori knowledge would work…)

I will refrain from presenting my ideas on my view/ my critiques after you present the foundations of yours. I can’t make heads or tails out of that post.

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And thus, the would - be champion is defeated by lack of readin comprehension.

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Could I, by your standards, claim that ‘there is something’? Here I don’t need to know what the ‘something’ is. Just that there is something. Which clearly there must be, or else such a claim could never be made.

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I stumbled here from the mundane babble thread, but I want to rephrase here what I asked there:
What good is apologetics?
It seems to me to be the use of rhetoric in the service of religion, sullying both. Perhaps this is a personal bias, but it really seems to cheapen religious discussion.
You can’t argue truth of any kind into any one. Emphasis on into. Or, following Spinoza via Erich Fromm, “Intellectual knowledge is conducive to change only inasmuch as it is also affective knowledge.” Until you feel it, no amount of argument makes you feel the truth or untruth of anything. And excessive argument looks like someone trying to convince their self of something. A much better way seems to me is to be a Christian example.

Shotgun, why all the bellicose imagery? Seriously, “Spiritual Warfare”, your nom de plume (nom de guerre?) Shotgun, the Jefferson quote, etc. It threatens to overwhelm any Christian message. BTW, the “Jaundiced Eye” thing is Alexander Pope, Van Til is quoting him.

Anyways, I look forward to any future discussion with you.

Best!
QK

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Fine, I reread it again to get a better understanding of your “points.” Happy now? However, your silly rules are no longer applicable since you didn’t follow them yourself after I renamed the thread and you refused to discuss me there without the advantage of the first and last post.

Who are “these men”? They are clearly not scientists, who continue the pursuit of knowledge. They are not philosophers either, seeing as these.

People are searching still for meaning, and they are debating for purpose. However, they do not make the foolish assumption that there is an “absolute” out there waiting to be found.

There is no knowledge that is immune to doubting (yes including this statement…). I simply contend that some knowledge is impractical to doubt constantly.

Bollocks. You are saying that there will always be uncertainty until you know god? In early history, a primitive man saw lightning strike a rock. He wondered, how did that happen? Well, he asked all the primitive scientists for an explanation. No one could figure it out then so the man safely assumed that no one would ever know… unless…GOD DID IT!1111!!! And that is how science began folks. If you posit god behind every unknown happening in the universe, then I guess you will always “know” the answer to life’s important questions.

Yup that’s good so far.

Following that…

Explain further? I need examples if I am to understand you (sorry atheists aren’t adept at telekinesis seeing as we are not speaking to “god” all the time).

Emotions and sense perceptions are the only way that humans perceive. Care to posit another in their stead? Also please define “knowledge.”

I suppress “god’s truth” with lies? What is your other system (wait, I think its further along in the text…). You assume god, woop-dee-dooo! Does that make your system any better?

Yea, I want to know this.

Yada-yada-yada. Genesis happened 6,000 years ago! (what a long time!).

Coool

Yes, I got this when I went to bible school–I want to hear something original.

Wtf? Explain??!!/!

Ye, if you assume “goddunit.” You seem to fail to understand that I could have all the questions of the universe answered if I assumed that purple pixies made the world and my purpose was to make plum cake so that they could feed it to the green troll that lives on mars. These pixies told me that killing people is actually a good thing because they can extract plum juice from people’s blood to make plum cake. Also, they gave me a code of laws. The laws were about how to make plumb trees. Of course, this all happened 2,000 years ago so it must be true. How would I know all this??!!?? Because, back then, they designed a sweet t-shirt with all their lessons on it. The point? Having ‘answers’ does not make those answers true. False answers serve only to suppress human intelligence.

Christ, scripture, yada-yada-yada.

Actually, the Cogito part of descartes argument is pretty valid. You are merely disputing linguistic terms. To communicate you need words to describe abstract conditions. Words don’t have meanings. People use words to express meanings. In a million years banana could mean to the inhabitants of the future what apple means to us to day. Regardless, I percieve therefore I am would be a better way to describe it.

Yes, presuppositional is really kinda stupid considering that if you assume anything, and your assumption is false, it makes you incorrect and deluded!

Now, looking at the thing from a whole. You still have yet to describe why your “world-view” has any basis in what you call ‘truth’ whatsoever. You can assume all you want, but it doesn’t make you any more right. If you want to be right, your assumptions must come from somewhere otherwise you can refer to my pixie argument above.

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Crappy internet made me double post: I reserve this spot for later debate.

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[Pasted per request from Shot. vs Art thread]

I might be interested in having a discussion with you about our respective worldviews. Why don’t I present a basic outline of my worldview, since that is how you presuppositionalists get things started.

I believe that our universe and the life and intelligence within it are ultimately composed of matter. This matter moves according to the nature of the universe, which we understand through scientific inquiry (e.g. physics, big bang theory, evolution, etc). Science has taught us about how the universe works, but we don’t really know why it works the way it does and not some other way. I believe this is acceptable because there may not be a reason, an answer to the “why”. The universe may be the way it is just because.

Man is an animal endowed with an unusual degree of intelligence and social tendencies. We are naturally interested in living together harmoniously, but our instincts towards selfishness and predatory behavior conflict with that goal. To resolve the conflict we have developed systems of morality and law.

Our religious impulses have several interrelated sources. We are naturally adapted to understanding the world in terms of interactions of social agents – even materialist physicists will often slip into social metaphors about mindless matter, suggesting that particles “know” and “do” in relation to other particles. Our adeptness with working in social systems makes it easy for us to conjecture that powerful agents (gods) are responsible for phenomena we do not understand. There are other reasons but I think I’ll stop there for now.

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Also, a brief response to your OP.

It is true that in an atheist philosophical framework, there is no one personal source of all knowledge. Man is alone attempting to figure out what’s going on in this world. And there is no unconditional certainty – for any fact we think we know, there is always a possible turn of events that would contradict and overturn the fact. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s just realistic. We know that uncertainty is the only constant in this world. Why embark on some quixotic quest to know with certainty when fallible, uncertain knowledge is a good enough guide in most situations?

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I would say that the ‘set’ of ‘knowledge’ is the sum total of our individual ‘memories’ at the moment. ‘Knowledge’ is different for everyone, unique as perspective.
As moments are different, so, too, our memories, so, too, our ‘knowledge’.
There are people who ‘doubt’ nothing, there are some who ‘doubt’ everything, and a whole spectrum between.
There are no ‘universals’ beyond ‘critical examination’ (doubt).

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To Mr. Hume:

I love the name…I to am a fan of the late Scottish philosopher. If more people understood Hume I think 90 percent of my job as a Christian apologist would be over with. (I state this here, but I’m not going to argue about it in this thread.)

To answer your question:

The point surrounding my first footnote, is meant to show that all people, of necessity have a network of presuppositions through which they filter the “facts.” For you to claim that something exists, is for you to know what a “you” is, as well as what “claiming” is, and also have SOME idea of what “something” is.

For you to claim that you have no worldview using the illustration you gave; you would have to remove the “you” and the “claiming” from the statement, and just say, “Something exists” in which case, you would no longer be talking about yourself and your supposed “lack” of a worldview, but rather would be simply making a claim. (You also would still have to have an idea of what “exists” is, and all the network of beliefs that would go into building up that idea.)

Thanks for being civil Mr. Hume…it’s like a breath of fresh air here!

To Mr. QuizKid:

Two things for you:

To begin with, allow me to quote you:

You can’t argue truth of any kind into any one.

So says the guy who has written two posts now, trying to convince me of the truth of his position.

Perhaps you should stay consistent with your own statements, and realize the futility of your arguments. Remember Mr. Quiz, any counter reply of yours, will be all but useless (given your view.)

But all that aside, you must mean, “Why should a Christian do apologetics?” The answer to that deserves a thread in and of itself. Suffice it to say; God works through the foolishness of what is preached to reach the unregenerate elect.

To answer your second question:

Shotgun, why all the bellicose imagery? Seriously, “Spiritual Warfare”, your nom de plume (nom de guerre?) Shotgun, the Jefferson quote, etc. It threatens to overwhelm any Christian message. BTW, the “Jaundiced Eye” thing is Alexander Pope, Van Til is quoting him.

Mr. “Art of War” challenged me to a debate. This thread was my response. I chose the title as a sort of “play” on his name, to say, “Hey Mr. Art…if you wanna get rowdy…then let’s go,” meaning at the same time: “This is a post in which apologetics will be done in a Biblically correct manner.”

My “name” is one that I’ve been using as an online apologist for about 8 years now. If it implies violence for you, fine. Shotguns are my favorite firearm, and I usually find myself surrounded by many unbelievers, and having to respond to them all in kind, (as is exemplified in this particular thread.) Fitting analogy, don’t you think?

The Christian message is not “overwhelmed” in the least by me, let alone my quotes. It seems to me, that this accusation of yours is sort of a personal bias on your part.

As for the Van Til quote…I have the reference for it, (It was in chapter 1 of his “Defense of the Faith” if I remember right.) If you can find some source material for Alexander Pope, when he made the same statement, then please hook me up. I’ll look at it, and consider if he meant anything like what Van Til did by the statement.

I hope this answers you Mr. Quiz.

I’m not going to respond to any such further inquires here though…I’d like to stay focused on the main thrust of the thread. So if you would like to respond to this further, or perhaps have more questions for me, please start a different thread…something along the lines of:

“Why Should Christians Practice Apologetics?”

God bless,

Shotgun

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Shotgun,

I understand the point of your first footnote, and my point was to show that there is, at least, one claim that can be made which is not reliant on any other. This was, ‘there is something’, or to rephrase to your words, ‘something exists’.

Now you write that even this is reliant upon other knowledge. That to say ‘something exists’ is to have an idea of what existing is. I have several objection to this claim, pick which one your prefer…

Firstly, as Art of War mentioned, words are just symbols, assigned a meaning by human users. The word ‘exists’ does not mean anything without humans there to posit meaning to it. So arguing over the semantics of the words is a bit futile. I could easily say, ‘something something’, as I don’t need to know the meanings to know that something is being perceived.

Secondly, existing is the first thing any sentient being is aware of. It can either exist or not exist. Not existing is pretty hard to be aware of, otherwise I would exist, so when the notion of existing enters my mind that in itself is a piece of knowledge. If we wanted to really break the cogito down, the actual first claim is, ‘existence’. Pure and simple. From the knowledge that existence is present, Descartes builds his world back up, albeit quite unsuccessfully. So knowing that existence is present is not reliant on any other knowledge.

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Mr. Art;

To be honest, your response to me comes across as sort of juvenile. Not what I was expecting from you at all. Instead of an attempt to dissect my philosophy, you contented yourself with contentious little jabs and one liners.

But…fortunately for you…I as a Christian apologist, am used to such things. I’ll try to respond to the main thrust of your counter argument here, but before I do…a word about debate.

You say this:

Fine, I reread it again to get a better understanding of your “points.” Happy now? However, your silly rules are no longer applicable since you didn’t follow them yourself

“Happy Now?” Yes…I am ecstatic! A few times now, either you, or someone else has referred to my requests as “silly” or…stupid, etc. When you challenged me to a debate, I thought that you wanted a formal debate. In formal debates, such a preliminary set of agreements are normal. I have attended two formal debates, listened to many more, as well as read tons. It is a very common thing for the first speaker to get the last word. (You can see such examples in the Hitchens/Wilson debate…or the Frame / Martin debate: infidels.org/library/modern/ … index.html )

Your lack of experience with formal debates, leads me to believe that you were perhaps a little hasty in your challenge.

Granted, none of us know everything…so I will forgive you, and concentrate on the main thrust of your counter argument, although it is a bit disjointed.

You have looked at the entirety of my essay, and decided to make the “Fristianity” argument. It is this that I will concentrate on. (Even though I shouldn’t…I am being more than kind to you, seeing as how Mr. Aporia has displayed a brief outline of his materialistic worldview, I can critique that in the absence of a description of yours.)

Here is the Fristianity argument, as argued by Mr. Art:

You seem to fail to understand that I could have all the questions of the universe answered if I assumed that purple pixies made the world and my purpose was to make plum cake so that they could feed it to the green troll that lives on mars. These pixies told me that killing people is actually a good thing because they can extract plum juice from people’s blood to make plum cake. Also, they gave me a code of laws. The laws were about how to make plumb trees. Of course, this all happened 2,000 years ago so it must be true. How would I know all this??!!?? Because, back then, they designed a sweet t-shirt with all their lessons on it. The point? Having ‘answers’ does not make those answers true. False answers serve only to suppress human intelligence.

First of all, this is not a rational or coherent worldview. It takes brilliant philosophers like Leibniz and Spinoza, entire lifetimes to construct a philosophy…but here Mr. Art tries to construct one off the hip.

Mr. Art, you claim: “…that I could have all the questions of the universe answered if…”

The point here is…that you cannot explain or answer the questions of the universe consistently given the above (absurd) worldview. These pixies do not provide for the preconditions which make rational thought possible. Nor does the flying spaghetti monster.

What are the preconditions of rational thought? And why can’t these fairies account for them?

Just as we would do a critique of Spinoza, or Leibniz…so to we must approach your absurd fairy worldview, and root out the internal inconsistencies.

We don’t need to examine ALL the internal inconsistencies of your absurd fairy worldview. However to exemplify my point, I’ll highlight one, but before I do…I must remind you of something I said in my essay:

However, given the lack of “epistemological wiggle room” out there, it is prudent for me to study the weaknesses of the main systems of secular philosophy in order to refute whatever version I am presented with. - quote from the charming and courageous Shotgun

In this case, your fairies will suffer from the same critique that can be leveled against any sort of polytheism. I assume you’re familiar with Plato’s dialogues? Specifically Euthyphro? You see, you alluded to a plurality of fairies. That means, that all of these fairies exist side by side with each other…and no fairy is higher than the others. This means, that they all reside within a bigger reality, of which they are all only particulars. Is this law that they’ve given you “to kill for plum blood”…“right” because they say it is… or is it right because they are appealing to something higher than themselves?

If it is only right because they say it is…then… morality is not dictated by laws, but rather by personal whims, in which case, why are their personal whims more meaningful than yours, (or the guy being murdered?) If it is right because they are appealing to something higher than themselves…then, they are no longer your ultimate authority.

Should you try to be sneaky, and say…(as a Christian would) that these fairies know what is “right” because “right” is defined by their nature… then you have two problems.

You have to figure out how a plurality of different fairies could all have the same nature (so that they can be harmonious in their decrees.)

Also… you have taken the first step towards Fristianity.

“What is Fristianity” you may be asking?

You see… the ONLY way to make your absurd fairly illustration work…is by ultimately attributing to it…all the characteristics of the Christian worldview. (Just like in the morality example…you have to end up being sneaky and trying to give to the fairies the same attributes as the Christian God.) Thus… you would no longer be left with a different philosophy, but would rather have the exact same philosophy…with just a different name. I.E. Fristianity.

This ultimately will leave you in the awkward position of having to defend the Christian worldview against the Christian worldview.

I win either way.

I would ask you Mr. Art… to please consider your statements more carefully in the future. I would rather have a good, deep philosophical discussion, than a contentious shouting match.

May that one Triune, ontologically good, transcendent, divinely aseic and interested, fairy… be with you.

Shotgun

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You’re making a few errors Mr. Hume, and I’ll try to highlight the issue for you.

Keep in mind that I am arguing that all people have a worldview. All people have a network of presuppositions through which they interpret data.

In your statements about “something” you are confusing the metaphysic with the anthropology of the situation. (You can posit metaphysics without talking about the network of presuppositions by which a man can know about reality. In other words…you can talk about something…and you can also talk about how man knows, and views this something, but the two however relevant and related, are different topics.)

There are at least two problems with this.

  1. EVEN IF, you could posit “something” without depending on any other belief… you could never leave there. How can you go from “something” to love… or justice…or peace? You would lock yourself ultimately (were you consistent) into complete nihilistic deadlock.

  2. You are assuming “something” why? Careful how you answer. Are you holding to a belief in your empirical observations of “something” or are you as Descartes, holding to a belief in your own rationalism? Whatever method you choose through which to know or say “something” will involve a belief.

Your discussion of language…right or wrong…is irrelevant to my point.

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Sorry, I got hung up on the concept of God being the God of Abraham. The Christian God rules by whim, depending on His emotional of state of pleasure or displeasure, and I just can’t believe this is a good way of understanding God. The force that organizes the universe is not one of emotional whims. Violtating universal laws and praying to God to be spared the consequences, isn’t going to work, because we are locked into a reality of cause and effect. Nor will the consquences of the misfortune of a tormenting youth, lead to us being further victimized in an after life of hell because we displease a God. It is so important we understand how things happen and live accordingly, I just can not go with a God that rules by whim, according to how pleased or displeased He is. How can we discuss all the other thoughts, when it all rest on believing or not believing in the God of Abraham?

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Huh? Nature seems extremely arbitrary to me.

If you would please, describe a “universal law”.

The God of Abraham, as you refer to “him”, isn’t really as whimsical as you seem to think. There are numerous scriptures that dictate how “he” supposedly wants his faithful to live. A set of undeniable instructions for what does, and doesn’t displease “him”…not whimsical at all.

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You left a little out of what I said. I would hate to the you were bearing false witness. And that is exactly how I see rhetoric of any kind. I mean would Jesus use the Straw Man argument? I can’t see it, maybe you can. Anyway, here is what I said:

Perhaps you know this concept better as “Pearls before Swine.”

Also, I don’t think I was trying to convince you of anything, I was just raising a point. Surely you see the difference.

No, it implies fear and anger.

What bias? I own guns! Or maybe you are talking about another bias?

Alexander Pope, the great English Poet and Essayist, wrote in “An Essay On Criticism” in 1711:

“All seems infected that the infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.”

This was almost 200 years before Van Til was born.

Best to you, but we still seemed to have missed my point. We’ll revisit it later. I am nothing if not patient.
QK

18

Soooo, ‘vague and confused’ people are philosophers?
Makes sense to me…

Is ‘consistency’ supposed to be a ‘desirable’ trait for some reason? Howzabout death? Cognitive/mental ‘consistency’ would be a state of ‘death’, at least what we ‘experientially’ know of it. I’ll elaborate on that a bit later…

Certainly! The ‘knowledge’ of one’s ‘beliefs’. The greater the ‘belief’ (infection), the greater the ‘certainty’ (dead cognitive processes within the cognitive area of infection); “I don’t need to ‘think critically’, Godsezit and I ‘believe’ it. That’s my ‘knowledge’!” The “True Believer” admits to NO DOUBT! So, I’d posit a tentative ‘yes’ to answer that question. Non-rational ‘knowledge’, but ‘knowledge’ nontheless.

Pretty slick. I really didn’t expect ‘that’ to come along. Jesus must be so proud…
Ok, so your bias/belief is out in the open. Moving on…

Perhaps because “vague and confused” people who are also capable of critical thought are less apt to be hanging around the 'True Believers" who, incidentally, show less such aptitude?

I would agree with this statement, most likely for very different reasons… But, in the next sentence, alluva sudden you start talking about ‘beliefs’;

Are you equating ‘views/Perspectives’ with ‘beliefs’?
Are ‘beliefs’ similarly unchosen?

Us versus them! “It’s ON!”
Ah yes, ‘judgement’ (dressed up in the moth-eaten old finery of “Critique”)!
‘Judging’ others (we ARE our ‘world-views’/Perspective).
The ‘sin’ of pride! Since you made a point to ‘claim’ Xtianity’, I thought I’d point that out for your edification.
The one and only real original sin (according to your own tradition) and ‘you’ all wave it so proudly in your god’s face! Ain’t life rich! *__-
(Whats a Father to do?!)

Yep! "It’s ON!! “Us against the world! Us vs Them! Slash, torture, burn!
‘Black’ VERSUS ‘white’ (you did mention ‘warfare’, didn’t you?) for those lacking sufficient critical cognitive abilities to discern shades of grey and many colors. The ‘belief’ must survive to replicate, so an ‘us vs them’ mindset is a natural manifestation of the survival mechanism of said ‘belief virus’. Those infected create ‘strife’ relative to the depth of their infection. Every portion of the cognitive mind that 'KNOWS THE TRUTH” (infected), is deadened to any ‘critical updates’ (and/or critical self examination), and will remain, isolated and adrift, as ‘unsupported’ as Windows 98!

Odd, never heard of philosophers starting wars… Killing to spread their favorite philosophies, their ‘knowledge’…
Of what sort of tree might contentious, violent, judgemental, intolerant and hateful fruits be found? What ‘knowledge’?

Peace

19

A sane person can legitimately doubt *any claim. after examination of the evidence if they maintain that doubt, in the face of unreasonable evidence, well that becomes absurd. at some point, the evidence must be strong enough to accept a concept as true, if the evidence gets to that point and the individual stil lcan’t accept it/reject it their probably wrong.