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Yes indeed. And when the "unknown" represents God to a person why wouldn;t they have a motive to remain ignorant about as much as possible to create the uncertainty and mystery in life so God seems BIGGER?
And we see believers claims to KNOW their version of God exists, and knows what the God wants and what Truth is. So more conflicting claims and beliefs from the religious.
The idea of a tree is a fictional abstraction. And yet everyone the world over recognizes the fictional abstraction of 'a tree', even though they will all hold forth a slightly different image-concept of a tree as the representation of their abstract ideal.
You don't seem to be understanding that we humans recognize reality through the many ideals we hold about it in our minds. We recognize the mountains, valleys, and forrests and rivers and everything else by relating them to the many ideals about reality that we hold in our minds. And a great many of these ideals are universal: meaning that they are held in the minds of all of us. I think you are conflating their being universal with their being absolute.
No, they aren't. They are created in our minds as a way of understanding what we actually experience through our interactions with the world around us. We experience many trees in our lifetime, and we generate the ideal of 'treeness' as a result of these eperiences. And every new tree we encounter gets recognized and evaluated through it's relation to that held ideal.
The "thing" cosmos is an ideal you are holding onto in your mind. But science has long since shown us that "things" are actually events. Objects are actually phenomena. Philosophical materialism was dead on arrival 200 years ago. But there are many modern day atheists obsessed with maintaining it. And this is a sad testament to their willful ignorance of both philosophy and science.
The world is whatever it is. Mostly it's a mystery, to us. But all we're ever going to know of it will have to be known cognitively because that's how we're made. Perception is conception. Everything else is moot. So I think its time we stop insisting that knowledge is objective and static when nothing that exists is objective or static.
No idea why you think being deliberately obtuse is going to help you.
So you think there is literally no difference between the existence of Sherlock Holmes and Winston Churchill?
Please do feel free to present the evidence that supports the notion that leprechauns and fairies are real in the way that you and me are rather than they way Jean-Luc Picard (captain of the Enterprise) is....
I can't make clear what you're trying so hard not to see.
The problem here is that you aren't considering nor bothering to clarify what a "real person" is or why you think it matters in relation to the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes. You keep wanting to denigrate fiction as being somehow not "real" yet you never bother to explain how it's not real, or why you think it matters. You think because it matters to you, that the rest of us should somehow automatically agree.
Neither is entirely fiction and neither is entirely real. Can you please stop hiding your point behind these deliberate murky obfuscations?
I know exactly what you and others are meaning to imply. But I'm not an idiot, so I can see through it. Which is what I am doing, here. The question is are you willing to open your own eyes and see through it, too? Or are you just going to continue to insist on hiding your bias behind deliberate obfuscation?
There are differences, and there are similarities. And both personas clearly exist, though not in exactly the same ways (but then nothng does). So the question is are you going to stop with these silly obfuscations and vague, pointless comparisons and start clarifying your position, or aren't you?
I already did this in a previous post.
No it isn't. It's an abstraction of real objects. Just like leprechauns, fairies, and god(s) aren't.
No it has not. 'Event' has a specific meaning in physics and it does not correspond to a 'thing'.
Not relevant.
If nothing is objective try doing something that is against the way the objective world works. Fly up to a tenth-story window unaided by technology. Project your hand through the computer screen. Once you can demonstrate that you are not constrained by the objective world, I'll take what you say seriously. Until then, not.
I'm not. I'm pointing out that there is a substantive difference in what we mean by 'real' in the two cases. Sherlock Holmes was never a real, flesh and blood person. That matters. Trying to pretend that it doesn't is absurd.
Comical.
Where? Pretty sure I'd have noticed if you'd manage to show evidence that leprechauns and fairies are real in the same way that you and me are....
Because for one, it's not "standard", it's biased. So it's only "standard" for those who hold that bias. And for another, it's not only imprecise, it's deliberately imprecise, and then actively kept imprecise so that it can continue to infer a false (biased) conclusion.
The Baha'i Faith is not mythical.
Yes, fiction is a made up story, but sometimes the story has a moral lesson to teach.
The salient point is that you do not know that the referenced entity "God" is a fictional entity held to be real by those of the Baha'i Faith.
Given the definition of myth, the Baha'i Faith cannot be characterized as a myth based religion, as most other religions are.
I do actually know that God exists, and I know it with great confidence.
Being dismissive isn't much of an argument. Even the dumbest of us can do that.
Rubbish! The word "real" in the context used means nothing more difficult than "actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed." Those who wish to establish as "real" something to which they are emotionally attached are left with the challenge of demonstrating that existence or factual occurrence. Something which -- as we see all too often, they are unwilling (or perhaps unable) to do.
Well, there's a slam at Christianity if I've ever seen one! Do you not suppose that Christians can take what "teaching" they like from the resurrection? Moreover, do you not see that while you think the Jonah story has a moral lesson to teach, Christians see the story as a forshadowing of their own end? Because, Jonah cried out from the belly of the "great fish" (it wasn't a whale) and the Lord saved him, and Jesus cried out from the Cross, and the Lord saved him. And Christians can likewise cry out from the belly of their own iniquity -- and shall the Lord not save them?Yes, fiction is a made up story, but sometimes the story has a moral lesson to teach.
What does Jonah and the whale teach us?
The short story has much to teach children in terms of moral lessons that they can apply to their lives. The main lesson is to trust the almighty and have faith in him as he has planned everything for everyone, and in the end, everything will be fine.Sep 3, 2022
Jonah And The Whale Story With Moral For Kids - Firstcry
On the other hand, some stories such as the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ are just made up, and there is no moral lesson.
