My previous "can you demonstrate that", wasn't just being cute
My response to it wasn't just being cute, either. One either buys into the development of reason and science and what surrounds it or one don't. My response reflects that buy-in. But I acknowledged that said buy-in is less than proof and, while that may be better grounded than your "because I said so," it still isn't absolutely absolute, just closer.
an agnostic point is much easier to defend then an assertion on either side, all you have to do is show lack of proof.
Well, yeah, which is why I've been arguing that, not that it's easy because easy suggests a contest but that it's constructive. I regularly take the position around here that some claim hasn't been substantiated, rarely that it's wrong, and try to provoke some basis or explanation. I do that in part because absolutism bugs me. It's the root of so many problems. If we could just get people to recognize that they don't KNOW all they think they KNOW we would be so much better off, so much better positioned to solve problems collaboratively. And because there are so many opinions out there and so little insight into where those opinions come from. This obviates opportunity to achieve understanding let alone agreement.
It seems to me that what's behind your belief that you know what you know in this case is something along the lines of "I just know it in my bones." At least that would be a recognition of your basis and an answer, although not a demonstrable one, to "how do you know that?" Or "it's coherent with my world view and I'm attached to my world view." Or even "God (or the Bible) said so," which is absolutism on steroids. At least those offer a reason, an explanation, a basis, even if not proof. "I just said so" just hangs there. |
