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To: D-fendr
Please clarify and nail that use down for me? Based on some evidence or no evidence for example. Is the difference between know and believe a scalar difference of knowledge or...?

Not really. Belief is acceptance based upon criteria other than fact, which is not or cannot be proven. Now, there are times when belief becomes justified by later discovered facts, but that simply moves things from one category to the other. Not a scale.

Knowledge is based upon fact. Things that can be rigourously proven and are demonstrable.

The Faith is belief, not fact. That the Bible exists (in its myriad forms) is fact, not belief. We believe that God inspired (and in the case of the Torah authored) the Bible. We know what the Canon of the NT is. Some examples, as it were.

1,257 posted on 12/07/2009 5:43:32 PM PST by MarkBsnr ( I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)
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To: MarkBsnr
Belief is acceptance based upon criteria other than fact, which is not or cannot be proven.

Ok, that helps. Here's the way I framework it.

Knowledge can be seen as different spheres, concentric ones, sphere's inside spheres. Each sphere has it's limits of what can be known, given its tools, methods and the data it can deal with.

Call the innermost sphere "science". It uses the scientific method, deals only with data that can be detected by the senses, etc. It is limited to the parts of reality that can be detected by the seneses and its extensions (microscope, etc.). However it is the firmest knowledge, the facts we can say with the most certainty are "known." This is also the most limited set or sphere.

Things that cannot be known given these limitations, transcend science's sphere.

Call the next sphere "reason/logic" or philosophy. It's method is formal logic. data includes those of science and those of mind manipulating a set of rules. It's limitation is conditional values or statements.

Knowledge beyond this limit transcends reason/logic.

Call the third sphere "religion". It can be seen as dealing with absolutes…

I'm going on too long.

Your "existence of the Bible" is scientific. Other portions of your "belief" use scientific and reason/logic; some transcend those two. Knowledge can involve more than one sphere, the firmness - i.e., hardness, objectively provable, decreases in the higher spheres. "Value" increases. So we know more about less in one direction, less about more in another.

So, to me there is only degrees and levels of knowledge and it is scalar. This doesn't not mean we cannot know less firm things with a high level of certainty, but our ability to objectively prove them decreases. Some knowledge, an important segment, by its nature can only be known subjectively. Actually, the things we know best on all levels are because we know them subjectively - i.e., by our own personal experience rather than accepting another's word or by memorizing a formula.

1,259 posted on 12/07/2009 6:14:08 PM PST by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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