Theos-Talk Archives (January 2006 Message tt00190)

Bill,

You wrote:

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These words from HS Olcott may give one pause to 
consider whether Olcott thought one would be wise 
to believe and accept the masters as real based on
his or anyone's elses eye witness testimony. He 
constantly asked for proof of what he, himself was 
seeing and so perhaps should we. Either one has met
a master and knows (and needs no written accounts 
of the eye witness testimony of others) or one has 
not met a master and therefore (despite
reading a hundred eye witness testimonies of others) 
one does not know but must rely instead on faith and 
belief.
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When you write: 

(1) "...Either one has met a master and knows...." 

or 

(2) "....one has not met a master and therefore....
one does not know but must rely instead on faith 
and belief....":

are you saying or suggesting that there are no other 
alternative ways to view or approach this issue?

Furthermore, when you use the phrase "...faith and 
belief...", are you suggesting that EVERYTHING a person 
doesn't know from direct observation can be relegated
to the realm of "faith and belief"?

How many events in the history books have any of us 
personally witnessed?

Are you suggesting that we should therefore say 
that our so-called "knowledge" of such events should 
be viewed as in the category of "faith and belief"?

How much of the body of scientific knowledge have any 
of us actually gained based on our own personal experience?

Therefore does that mean our own "knowledge" of science is
simply based on "faith and belief"? 

Or take Gregory Tillett's recent statement about Jesus:

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That anyone in the 21st century would bother to assert 
that Jesus did not exist is indeed extraordinary, given 
the vast weight of scholarship (as opposed to
"psychic revelation") that has been devoted to this question! 
Scholars who are agnostics, humanists or atheists have 
reached the conclusion that his existence
is a simple matter of historical fact.
=================================================

In light of what you wrote, does that mean that 
all these scholars' conclusions are in the same category 
of "faith and belief" since none of them
ever met the historical Jesus?

Or take all of Paul Johnson's research in his 3 books. 

In light of your statement and its implications, could we 
conclude that whatever conclusions he came to, these 
conclusions belong to the same realm of "faith and belief"?

In summary, how much of what each of us "knows" is really 
based on our personal observations and experiences and how 
much of what we think we know is simply secondhand "knowledge" 
which could be placed in this category of "faith and belief"?

Maybe I am reading too much into your words. But these are 
some of the questions that came to my mind as I read your 
statements and pondered on their meaning, etc.

Daniel
http://hpb.cc