andrel wrote:
> What I said (and I think Jim is along the same line) is not that 
> knowledge is faith but that those that believe *know* that they are 
> right.

Right. Except by making it mean "I'm really *really* faithful", you've 
eliminated the usefulness of the word.

If I said "I *know* Lincoln was the first president of the USA", what would 
you say? What if I was absolutely positive? Would you say I knew that for a 
fact?  Or would you say "No, your belief is incorrect"?

> I can not prove it,

You have justification for your belief.

One can argue over whether there is sufficient justification to turn a 
belief in something that happens to be true into knowledge, sure. But no 
amount of confidence without justification will turn belief into knowledge.

> that does not change the fact that I know god does not exist.

You may have justification in your belief. Others may have justification in 
theirs. But just as I wouldn't call any amount of belief in something false 
to be "knowledge", I wouldn't call any amount of belief in something 
unjustified to be "knowledge."

The idea that you "know" that you "should have" taken another route home is 
silly. To "feel strongly" and to "know" are two different words, and it's 
intellectually dishonest to use one instead of the other when you know better.

If you've had first-hand experience with deities, then saying you "know" 
deities exist is reasonable, even if it turns out later you're mistaken and 
you simply justifiably believed in something false.

In other words, it's perfectly reasonable to say "I know X", when indeed 
you're mistaken about it. But you don't have the knowledge. You either 
believe something false, or you accidentally believe something true without 
any justification.

Maybe I'm just a bit oversensitive, with all the people who actually 
deep-down inside know they are *not* right trying to convince me by 
overstating their knowledge.

-- 
   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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