Thank you, and the post appears to make sense, in it's direct context. However it does not appear to answer my question...
What category compelled you that Christianity is true?
Furthermore, I don't feel there exists any type of epistemic philosophical conflicts, in regards to asking for empirical 'knowledge' for the existence to the asserted and specific claimed monotheistic God Yahweh?
Probably what compelled my assent and faith in Jesus was the activation of parts of my brain that aren't too dissimilar from those which were activated when I fell in love with my wife. But, I suppose you'll want me to explain why I love my wife, too?
The fact is, epistemological complications (...and notice I say "pistemological complications," not merely epistemology generally speaking) can't be extricated from the overall issue of belief and faith.
Yet, this is what it seems you're trying to assert that you can do, and while I could be wrong, the only reason I can think of as to why you are doing this is because you, like many typical working scientists today, haven't actually studied the logical and essential structures (and complexities) of your own epistemic assumptions, most of which are typically Evidentialist in nature, or how these are involved in the the human mind works. I'm thinking that you think that you've latched onto some cognitive science of some sort, and you've then begun to just run with it, thinking that you've hit the motherload and that the present epistemic structures actually in your head at the moment are in no need of any further epistemic scrutiny.
The paradox is this: even though you may have some conclusions from cognitive science by which you think you are now in no further need of epistemological scrutiny, the truth is that the field of epistemology as a whole has to do with the ways in which any person tries to 'perfectly' justify his/her own claims about the world (SO, NO ONE IS PRIVY TO AN ESCAPE FROM THIS SITUATION), and the complication is that...................and here's the kicker that really kicks me in the **********.....................NO EPISTEMOLOGY [even those involved in the sciences] enables a person to perfectly justify his or her claims about reality; and the bigger and more complex the claim is in association to its being recognized in reality, the harder it is to justify in any kind of way that other people SHOULD JUST KOW-TOW to the claim of the person who so asserts it.
So, for instance, I can make a simple claim and say, "The Sun comes up in the East." That's a simple enough claim, and most of us can vouch for its veracity. However, while this claim is true for just about everyone except those who are blind, there are a myriad of associated claims that emerge out of this one and which won't be so easily shared among all interlocutors and then justified among all these same folks. Moreover, each epistemological structure by which a person frames his or her thoughts and justifications is fraught with logical frailties and other risks of fracturing that make it so that it's very, very difficult for each of us to justify our beliefs, especially for something like ideas in the field of Religion. Additionally, some of the epistemological structures involved in something like Christian belief are fraught with even bigger problems, like that of
Lessing's Ditch.
Then, to add the frosting to the cake,
Biblical Epistemology itself implies that............................
God isn't going to necessarily condescend to us and do for us what we each individually hope He will do to 'prove' His existence and His love for us. It's a big ol' bitter horse-pill to have to swallow, but that's just the way it is. Unfortunately, to make matters worse, there has been some amount of brainwashing going around in some evangelical Christian circles over the past few hundred years, since the onset of the Enlightenment, that claims that if a person JUST HAS ENOUGH EVIDENCE, OR THE RIGHT KIND OF EVIDENCE, then he/she
will and should be able to believe. But, that ain't how the writers of the Bible tell us it all works................................................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
