How Does Epistemology Impact the Philosophy of Religion?

Question: How Does Epistemology Impact the Philosophy of Religion!?

(I!.e!., how does what you have learned about epistemology affect the assessment of faith, religion, claims about God, theological arguments, why people believe, etc!.!?) Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

epistemology is the theory of knowledge - so your question has an interesting, perhaps unintended twist: how if at all does my understanding of epistemology change epistemology!? difficult to answer!. i believe my understanding of it does NOT really change the nature of epistemology itself!. what i "learned" about the subject is limited by my capacity to understand it!.

But epistemology DOES indeed influence all other theories and beliefs in God, etc!. what i BELIEVE is a valid theory of knowledge does impact on what i BELIEVE 'god' is, religion should be, and so on!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

In order for religion to survive, it needs to have space in our world view!. The ideas that religion puts forth, however, are at odds with the way that we understand the natural world around us!.

The being said, in order to accept the legitimacy of something that is completely at odds with everything we understand in the universe and the manner in which things are understood, we have to make a epistemic stand that there are things in this universe that by their definition defy everything we do know, and can ever know!. We have to take the position of existence of the unknowable!.

I found religion hard to buy into at a fairly young age… so my belief (or rather lack thereof) was not trigger, altered or affected by what I learned in studying epistemology!. The position just seemed like!.!.!. a forfeiture of intellect, "oh it's just unknowable" seemed like a very hollow answer for anything, and it makes for an unattractive philosophical stance (given the nature of what philosophy is!.)
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Well, the positivists claimed that in order to have a philosophy of science, all metaphyisics must be disregarded!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com