The Introduction
"The subject of this book is the question whether we can know God is real. The answer it gives is yes… Neither the question posed nor the answer given is considered a topic for polite conversation these days. Religion has changed places with sex as a taboo subject in public. It’s all right to acknowledge that there are such things as religious beliefs, but only so long as we go into no further detail. The least acceptable form of going into further detail would be a discussion such as the one that takes place here –that is, a consideration of how to tell which, if any, of those beliefs are true and which are false."
"This book shows how clarifying the nature of religious belief allows us to see that under the right circumstances it can be a basic belief grounded on the same kind of justification enjoyed by beliefs traditionally regarded as among the most certain we have. Thus if justified certainty warrents us in saying we have knowledge, then belief in God can also be knowledge."
–from the Introduction, pages 9-10
A. faith is not
1. blind
2. wishful thinking
3. acceptance without knowing
B. religion is not
1. private "true for just me"
2. scare story to support ethics
C. rather, religious belief is
1. “publicly” either true or false for everyone equally
2. inevitable / unavoidable
a. perhaps unconscious
b. perhaps under different name
3. connected to all other knowledge
D. knowledge: justified belief, cf. p.152, Chapter 5
