David H. Burns wrote:
>> The faithful think that believing is more "complete" thank knowing. As 
>> long as you believe, it overrides whatever you might know.

> Are you speaking from experience?

To some extent, yes.

>> So when the faithful person says "I believe in God," they mean what a 
>> non-faithful person would mean by "I know there is a god and I know 
>> what attributes that god has". When the non-faithful says "I don't 
>> believe in god", they (generally) mean "you would have to actually 
>> give me a convincing reason for me to believe in god, at which point I 
>> would know why."
> 
> It's unwise to attribute to someone a meaning different from what he has 
> actually said.

I wasn't talking about what he said. I was talking about my experiences in 
general discussing this sort of stuff. Jim just gave another good example: 
"I know *instinctively* that it's true."

> Of few of us, in ordinary conversation anyway, say precisely what we 
> mean. You use of the
> terms "faithful" and "non-faithful" are "interesting." :)

I was saying precisely what I meant. ;-)  Faith is that which turns belief 
into "knowledge", altho I obviously use that latter term losely.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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