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To: plusone
Strictly speaking, there is no way to "prove" (i.e. objectively demonstrate) anything at all.

For example: there is no way to objectively demonstrate that the universe you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste actually exists in any real way. Your subjective senses tell you it does, but subjective sense experiences are not objectively verifiable; the senses are often fooled. In dreams, for example: from the point of view of the dreamer, it's impossible to objectively distinguish the things one sees in the dream from the things one sees in so-called reality. We may assume that the world we experience when we are awake is in fact the Real World, but we cannot demonstrate that assumption to be true.

That is where faith comes in -- and it is that faith that lies at the root of all scientific reasoning. If you choose to believe that the Universe is real, then that is your business -- but don't kid yourself into thinking that you know it to be so, because you cannot. As Descartes pointed out, the only thing we can know to be objectively true is that which we perceive directly, without the medium of our subjective senses -- in other words, our objectively experienced self-awareness.

Each of us can know that he or she exists because we constantly and objectively experience ourselves existing: cogito ergo sum.

Think about that before deciding what's real and what isn't.

277 posted on 06/16/2003 9:52:14 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: B-Chan
You bring up good points. True, much of what we view, and think to be real, is just subjective interpretation. But where does that leave us? If we can't really be certain of anything, then do we reject everything as possibly false, or accept it all, because it might be true? Without granting some common sense leeway, we are stuck with no guidposts, we are just lost. But how does this apply to the possibly devine nature of scripture? If you must accept that the Bible is devinely inspired, since there is no way to prove the notion false, then must you accept all religious texts?
369 posted on 06/17/2003 7:12:04 PM PDT by plusone
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