The Myth Of Knowing Without Absolute Certainty

Scientists and theologians, instead of admitting that entire categories of ideas cannot be proven to be true or false and distinguishing awareness of a concept and what logically follows from it from knowing if that idea is actually true, often ignore the issue of logical proof altogether and try to hide behind the asinine belief that something can be known without truly being known.  This leaves them stranded in a place where they must both believe various ideas that they themselves confess are not verifiable and speak as if they really do know their assertions are correct.  While a more rational and thoughtful person will forsake this nonsense altogether, most people are not rational, and that includes plenty of more culturally visible scientists and Christian apologists.

Rationalistic commitment to living as if certain scientific or religious notions are true is about identifying consistency, evaluating probabilistic evidences, and admitting the evidential weight certain concepts have without actually believing they are true.  Of course, this is exactly what is too abstract and too specific to be embraced by more than a minority of thinkers, and the popular Christian apologist William Lane Craig is among the majority of haphazard philosophers who appeal to personal perceptions and preferences as a basis for believing in things that are supposed to not be a matter of perception and preference.  For example, his commitment to Christianity is not about proof or evidence (the two are far from identical) at all, as he says he would be a Christian no matter what evidences there are because of the supposed inner confirmation of the Holy Spirit.

One of the many consequences of his assumption-based worldview is that he has to both argue against absolute certainty (which is self-defeating, since you would need absolute certainty to know that absolute certainty is impossible to achieve) and still say that he can know that a plethora of miscellaneous philosophical ideas are true.  In fact, William Lane Craig directly says that knowledge does not require certainty, which ultimately would mean that someone could "know" something without actually knowing it, a completely contradictory stance that refutes itself.  Not only does he claim that one can know things that are unknowable given human limitations--even something as relatively "simple" as the idea the world has existed for more than a few seconds--but he also simultaneously claims it is impossible to truly know anything in the first place!

This stance is far more common than some might think.  Since most people are not rationalists and have never thought thoroughly about anything other than random practical issues of daily life or consistently thought without making assumptions, when cornered, they will almost always either say that nothing is knowable despite the inherent contradictions in saying so or they will say that one can know things without truly knowing them.  What else is there for a non-rationalist to believe?  When a person rejects or misunderstands reason itself, which they are ironically still using to analyze reason and every other thought or experience they have (just not intelligently or sincerely), they thrust themselves into contradictions and a lack of foundation that leaves them without any justified beliefs.

A person who deeply cares about truth will either not ever believe that an impossible thing is possible or will eventually leave such stupidity behind after recognizing it for what it is.  Knowledge without certainty--and absolute certainty is only found through reason and introspection--is an impossible thing.  It is a myth which motivates fools to embrace other myths.  It is one of the more irrational myths at the heart of so many fallacies, assumptions, and preference-based dismissals of logical truths, the grand lie that people of many worldviews appeal to so that they can sound justified in claiming to know something they themselves, rightly or wrongly, classify as unknowable.  Whenever this lie is believed, a rejection of the inherent veracity of logical axioms is at hand or imminent.