Belief shifts into knowledge when enough evidence is presented - and what the nature of this evidence is, and what constitutes 'enough' are matters for consensual agreement within the scientific community.
I don't have enough evidence to convince an atheist of the existence of deity. I have enough evidence to convince *me*, but that's more a question of context and meaning - for anyone who wants to explore this more, there's an interesting text on paganism by an anthropologist called Luhrmann, who joined a couple of covens to investigate pagan belief. She came to the conclusion - which I think is fair - that pagans, like members of other religious belief systems, construct realities for themselves which are highly meaningful, but not open to objective justification.
This is why I don't like dogmatic people. I don't think there's any objective justification for one's spiritual path other than the attempt to make sense of one's own life in what may best be described as a Romantic tradition. But there are subjective justifications - the perception of synchronicities and coincidences, for instance, which serve to shore up belief.
Ultimately, however, I can't just stop believing. In ways, I wish I could. I'm in the odd position of being a deist pagan who has a doctorate in epistemology: I end up being convinced - ultimately - by neither relativism or absolutism, whilst remaining an instinctive absolutist. Scientifically? - if one wanted to pin a label on me, I'd be happy to be described as an empiricist.
no subject
I don't have enough evidence to convince an atheist of the existence of deity. I have enough evidence to convince *me*, but that's more a question of context and meaning - for anyone who wants to explore this more, there's an interesting text on paganism by an anthropologist called Luhrmann, who joined a couple of covens to investigate pagan belief. She came to the conclusion - which I think is fair - that pagans, like members of other religious belief systems, construct realities for themselves which are highly meaningful, but not open to objective justification.
This is why I don't like dogmatic people. I don't think there's any objective justification for one's spiritual path other than the attempt to make sense of one's own life in what may best be described as a Romantic tradition. But there are subjective justifications - the perception of synchronicities and coincidences, for instance, which serve to shore up belief.
Ultimately, however, I can't just stop believing. In ways, I wish I could. I'm in the odd position of being a deist pagan who has a doctorate in epistemology: I end up being convinced - ultimately - by neither relativism or absolutism, whilst remaining an instinctive absolutist. Scientifically? - if one wanted to pin a label on me, I'd be happy to be described as an empiricist.