Rise of atheism: 100,000 Brits seek 'de-baptism'

[Final-Fan]

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:
I could reply to the whole thing, but hopefully this will cut to the heart of the matter:

From what you are saying I think your "absolute knowledge" is closer to "personal truth" than "absolute truth", the latter being universal.

That is, a person could hypothetically "absolutely know" something that contradicts something that someone else "absolutely knows", based on different revelations.

That would be why I had a fit when you were saying stuff like 'we know it's absolute knowledge because it's absolute knowledge, lol': because PERSONAL "absolute knowledge" (what you were talking about) doesn't imply UNIVERSAL "absolute knowledge" (what I was talking about*).

That would be why you said that when I was talking about absolute certainty you thought it was close to what you were talking about -- because what I meant by "absolute certainty" was what you meant by "absolute knowledge".

This may explain everything. But have I misinterpreted your meaning?
*And in my defense -- I mean, come on, it's absolute knowledge!

    Well, perhaps in calling absolute knowledge 'personal truth' or 'personal absolute knowledge' it can clear up something, sure. I think it might clear up, specifically, that this method of revelation is not something I can appeal to you or anyone else with (to convince them of something about the world). Whereas sense data and rationalism are (actually within assumption...) thought to be something that every capable person has and is able to 'harness' in the same way. So it is thought, therefore, that if each person used it correctly (method of truth) we could arrive at the same knowledge when a question or disagreement is brought between us about something of the world. (And again, of course, that's not my position.)

    I do, however, hope there is no implication of subjectivism in those terms. When I say I absolutely know something as per my revelation I truly mean... it is true (for anything with the capability of knowing truth). As I've explained before, in saying things like "it's only true for me but not necessarily for you" it really just goes against the meaning of truth altogether. One can certainly mean something different by the use of truth there but it would not, therefore, be related to the meaning of truth I'm talking about.

    All that meaning, in response, no, I could never acknowledge the possibility that someone receives a different absolute truth about the world than I do. This is because, though that phrase is composed of meaningful english words, when I put them together they refer to nothing (e.g. John is a married bachelor). So I'm not denouncing a possibility per se, I'm denouncing a phrase that is truly meaningless to me (which is essentially the contention of logic, whether in relation to a phrase or an argument).

Well, it just has to be hypothetically possible, not actually possible. 

And, well, you can't have it both ways.  Agreeing to call it "personal absolute knowledge" won't make me happy if you follow it up with "but it's also universal absolute knowledge" which defeats the point. 

So:  this, combined with all you've said, only gives me the following impression: 
A supernatural being could invade Person A's mind and cause him to believe something without any speck of doubt in the world that X is true.  (Revelation)  Person A absolutely knows it.  And, having done this, the same supernatural entity COULD NOT do the same to Person B but give him absolute certainty in not-X because it would violate the definition of truth. 

Unless you're just saying that A could never conceive of such a thing happening to B because it would violate his own absolute certainty.