Soren wrote on Aug 11
th, 2015 at 9:24pm:
Whatever you have no notion of is not a thing FOR YOU. It is not a thing FOR YOU to believe in or not to believe in.
So you just require a passing notion? You've gone from knowledge to notion.
At what stage does that notion become sufficient to state "I don't believe" ?
Belief is a personal thing. It happens inside your head. Nobody can tell me what anybody else believes in or doesn't believe in.
Maybe if every member of the population had a perfect grasp of logic, you could get your idea to work, but the fact is that probably the majority of people believe in things that they have absolutely no notion of. From the perspective of humanity, your argument breaks down.
A suburban family filling in a Census form:
"Hey Cheryl, what's our religion again?"
"Pentecostal"
"Ah OK. How do you spell that?"
.....
Pho Huc wrote on Aug 11
th, 2015 at 9:01pm:
Your both right of course. at least from the perspective of my personal spiritual framework,
Its always entertaining when people of faith argue with people of reason.
Well we both have reason and we both have faith of one sort or another. I believe in God (of sorts), and I assume from his arguments that Soren has faith in traditional Western conservative concepts. If he actually believed in God, he would take me to task on that observation I just made. I don't believe that he has ever done that.
He's talking about belief as a notional concept. Theists on the other hand, talk about belief from a faith perspective. Belief in God to a Theist means having faith in God or having confidence in God. The question of existence is not a question, and doesn't enter into their definition of belief (in that context).