Keith Devens .com

Lewis treats this topic in depth in The Problem of Pain. If you liked Mere Christianity, I think you would enjoy that one as well.

Keith,

I looked at your previous post about evil and found this:

In short, the existence of "evil" requires objective moral standards which are only provided on the Christian worldview.

But then in one of your comments, you say this:

Gravity acts the same on everybody, but not everyone agrees about what's moral.

You demand an explanation for objective moral standards, yet we cannot all agree on what they are. Even if objective standards were required for some reason, you cannot claim that your postulated standards are any better than anyone elses. (I won't even get into why the Bible is self-contradictory when it comes to morality.)

You seem to be searching for an absolute reason why people should act according to a certain moral code, presumably because you think that if they only knew, they would automatically be good people. Unfortunately, very few people act with any philosophical coherence. Even if there were an objective moral standard, people wouldn't feel compelled to act within its framework. I know this because religious groups don't follow their own supposedly objective standards. Most people are morally good for personal or utilitarian reasons, not philosophical reasons.

There is no objective moral system. We can study game theory and ethics, and we can identify systems that allow us to live better lives based on some set of criteria. However, this study will not force anyone to live according to the rules.

Philosophically, there's no requirement that there be a objective moral standard, and it certainly cannot be used to justify the Christian faith.

You demand an explanation for objective moral standards, yet we cannot all agree on what they are.

I think you're arguing that because we can't all agree on our basis for ethics, therefore there is no objective basis for ethics. That's a complete non sequiter.

Even if objective standards were required for some reason, you cannot claim that your postulated standards are any better than anyone elses.

Of course I can, simply because my standard is not "postulated" (i.e. I didn't just make it up). It's revealed by the creator of the universe! Whereas others just make their ethics up, and therefore have no authority behind them, the basis of ethics in Christianity is objective and universal and carries the authority of God Himself.

You seem to be searching for an absolute reason why people should act according to a certain moral code, presumably because you think that if they only knew, they would automatically be good people.

Heh, no. I think people generally know what is good and what's evil, and behave how they want anyway. The Bible says that we know the truth but suppress it.

Even if there were an objective moral standard, people wouldn't feel compelled to act within its framework.

Of course. There is, and they don't. But at least the fact that there is an objective standard for right and wrong means that we can meaningfully say that, say, rape and murder are wrong, and Hitler was evil for killing millions of people. Without that, how can we even judge (beyond merely saying "well, I don't like that")?

There is no objective moral system. We can study game theory and ethics, and we can identify systems that allow us to live better lives based on some set of criteria.

Sure, but if everyone makes up their own criteria, that's not ethics at all.

Philosophically, there's no requirement that there be a objective moral standard...

For ethics to mean anything at all, there must be an objective, universal standard for right and wrong. Otherwise, the words "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "evil" merely become shorthands for "pleasing to me" or "displeasing to me". If you think otherwise, I'd like to see you provide justification for your ethical system.

Most people are morally good for personal or utilitarian reasons, not philosophical reasons.

In your view, what does it even mean to say that people are "morally good"?

I think you're arguing that because we can't all agree on our basis for ethics, therefore there is no objective basis for ethics.

No, I am arguing that because we cannot all agree on our basis for ethics, we cannot derive an objective basis based on experience. Not that I'm sure you are trying to do this. I'm just sealing off potential exits.

Of course I can, simply because my standard is not "postulated" (i.e. I didn't just make it up). It's revealed by the creator of the universe!

I know you didn't make it up. You couldn't have. You're not that old.

How was it revealed? It appears to me that you read it in a collection of inconsistent, Iron Age poetry. Or rather, a popular interpretation of that collection.

Why do you grant revelational status only to the Bible instead of other books? Preference, perhaps?

Without that, how can we even judge (beyond merely saying "well, I don't like that")?

We cannot judge except by saying "I don't like that." It's an inconvenient fact about the universe.

Sure, but if everyone makes up their own criteria, that's not ethics at all.

Ethics is the study of possible moralities, it's not a single, unique philosophy.

Besides, why does it matter to you? Since people would not follow an objective morality if it existed, it seems that the world would be pretty much the same whether there were an objective standard or not.

Indeed, there are two reasons why you cannot say your position is justified on the grounds that the results of adopting that position will be morally good. First, you have already admitted that the world wouldn't be any better off ("suppression" as you put it). Second, taking this line of argument would indicate that you knew what was morally good before you adopted your position.

Otherwise, the words "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "evil" merely become shorthands for "pleasing to me" or "displeasing to me". If you think otherwise, I'd like to see you provide justification for your ethical system.

I don't think otherwise, though I do think your reduction is a little simplistic. I think that what we each think of as good and evil are emergent structures in our respective neural networks. The brain is a pattern matching network of autoassociative memories. That network is easily capable of finding a pattern of thoughts and sensations that we regard as good for us (or bad for us). Activating this region of the brain plays back all memories and sensations that match the pattern. That's why the definition of "good" is so fuzzy. Neural networks are great at finding answers. They're not very good at figuring out what the question was.

Nonetheless, our societies and our biologies tend to provide us with overlapping definitions of right and wrong.

In your view, what does it even mean to say that people are "morally good"?

To act in a manner consistent with the Golden Rule.

I'll try to get a more lengthy reply down in the over the weekend when I have a bit more time, but for the moment, I have this to say:

I am intrigued by this idea that we kick our foundations out from under ourselves when we use terms like "unjust" but try to maintain an atheist viewpoint. I can see the point that is trying to be made here (I think), but can 'justice' be grounded in something other than Christianity? I already know your answer to this Keith, but it is at least plausible that it could have come from somewhere else.

I for one had usually argued about the problem of evil in less ambiguous terms such as 'suffering'. I have argued in the past that 'undeserved suffering' is , regardless of what emotionally charged terms we might attach to it, something that a being such as God ought not to allow to happen. Now I accept that this can be interpreted as me saying "undeserved suffering is unjust".
You could try to counter this asking where I got my ideas of justice from. This is irrelevant. There are two possibilities, either undeserved suffering is just, or it isn't. It seems to take a lot of theological bells and whistles to show that it is just and God exists.

It could also be argued that it is just because they deserve it. I accept that there are parts of the Bible that can be taken as supporting this. But can this response drag itself up by it's bootstraps? eg, only if God exists is the Bible a valid source of information about God, hence to cite the Bible in attempting to prove God's existence on begs the question, by presupposing the issue at hand. I know that you won't accept this, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway.

No amount of cleverness with regard to whether or not I can coherently use word like 'just' hides the state of the world. I could concede your point (I don't really, but just pretend that I do). But the world is still cruel. Events can still seem like they are incongruent with the existence of an Existent, Omniscient, Omnipotent and perfectly Benevolent Being.

I mention 'Existent' specifically because it is the last thing about God that I would dispute because it is the last thing I could prove either way. The others, particularly the last two are more accesible to critique in my opinion.

Reduce the argument to its core. Life Hurts. We don't like it, and I see no need for justification of this reaction. If things have to be this way, then we will take it. But if this suffering could be prevented, and it wasn't, are these the actions of a just God? If they are, then many have preferred to choose to believe in the non-existence of God, rather than the frightening prospect of a divine being that we could not understand the terms of in our own, finite morality. It does not make much difference, as a God whose idea of right and wrong are inscrutiable to us is as good as one that is not there at all.

It seems to me that Lewis' presuppositionalist argument would extend to challenge all 'absolute' foundation of any opinions...such as can we truely say anything is true, without a firm foundation of truth?

The truth issue is slightly different though i guess, because often we manufacture our own definition of the situation in which something is true. (i.e. we know that 2+2 = 4 because we choose to accept that the definition of 2 is 4).

I can't see a way in which such an explanation could applies to justice however. In order to say that 'the world is unjust' we cannot simply define the world as unjust - the world is beyond our control, while numbers remain within it.

I'm with Lewis, and you Keith in struggling to find a way in which we have defined our own objective moral standard with any absolute, without the help of God.

At the heart of what Lewis is saying is that he could 'only' understand Justice if he'd been given some benchmark of comparison.

In the same way ... would anything hurt, if we did not on some level understand the benchmark of Love?

My Dad once shared with me a question he used to offer in response to those who would say we're purely the product of genetics. I think it's relevant - maybe. 'How do you explain Love?'

People do not want to believe, and are on some level unable to believe that Love is the product of chance. Deep down we all have these benchmarks... of what hurts, and of what feels good.

The Atheist must ask where they've come from.

Indeed, is it a reflection of man's quest for these benchmarks that we are so prone to defining our own context for truth (i.e. that 1 is half of 2) ... Why do we look for benchmarks, if we have not already been given some.

I predict that this debate is going to be settled by experiment within 30 years.

Why? Because we will soon be able to create artificial intelligences by simulating human brains. When this happens, not only will we put to bed all dualistic models of mind, but we will also empirically understand the relation between concepts and language.

I believe that each concept, whether simple like "yellow", or more complex like "insect", is a learned, recognized pattern in the brain. The speech centers associate a word in language with each concept. We often get tripped up when these concepts are very fuzzy. Our neural networks do not reason in a logic way, but instead pick out complex patterns and correlations from stimuli. This is why we may often know something when we see it, but not be able to describe what "it" is in terms of other concepts. This is to be expected because a pattern recognizing network can take thousands of inputs from different types of sources, from direct sensory inputs (e.g., hormone levels), to low level patterns (like colors and sounds), to high level concepts like "female" or "anger". There will be many stimuli that trigger recognition of the "love" pattern, each with a different amount of lust, tenderness, "motherness" etc. We can tell that we love person X, but we cannot easily write down a formula for why we love them.

However, brain simulations will one day (soon) be able to provide us with an understanding of these mechanisms. For the first time, we will see what the concept of "love" is in empirical terms (i.e., we will be able to write down the formula, at least for that particular brain sim), and we will have proof of the mechanisms that make it fuzzy. The same goes for justice, evil, right, wrong, etc. And yes, we will find these things to be partially subjective.

Sorry for being lax in responding. Haven't given up... I plan to get back to y'all tomorrow night.

Hmm, will respond to one thing now:

For the first time, we will see what the concept of "love" is in empirical terms (i.e., we will be able to write down the formula, at least for that particular brain sim), and we will have proof of the mechanisms that make it fuzzy. The same goes for justice, evil, right, wrong, etc.

That completely misses the point of an ethical system. A system of ethics must tell us what is right and wrong... i.e. what should and shouldn't be done. In other words, a system of ethics must be normative, not merely descriptive. Any account of ethics based on what is done or based on a computer model that predicts, based on analyzing the human brain or by looking at human language and discovering some lowest-common-denominator version of what most people consider "evil", is by definition descriptive, not normative. In short, it can't tell us anything about what's right and wrong. Best it can do is tell us what some people consider to be right and wrong.

doctor(logic),

I find your last postulation ironic in the utmost. Like Hawkings (I am referring to the recent elegant though simple work, "On Intelligence"), you seem to subscribe to this materialistic Kantianism that places the magic of meaning in the mechanism of the brain (vs. the magic of the Kantian mind). There will be an answer forthcoming in AI and it will confound this notion that meaning is found through the magic of the brain working on teleologically-free signals. If it were that simple, there would be no way to keep those patterns between agents closely in sync and communication would be impossible. As someone who quotes Descartes on your website, I really shouldn't have to explain why this would be the case - and I don't have to be a dualist either.

Of course, we don't really have to wait to for this to emerge. We can just be good logicians and realize that your argument is incoherent. If these mechanisms that you believe will be discovered will only serve to further vindicate how subjective the "truths" that are adhered to by the brain really are, then how is it that the objectivity of the system and terminology by which you use to describe it will be reinforced? Will not the contrary be true? I.e. to the degree that you render the objective nature of these transcendental concepts subjective- and I don't want to import the baggage of the "transcendental" label here, I merely mean that they are trans-agent concepts - how do you mean to articulate them to others who will have the same relativity and subjectivism in their understanding of your message to them?

The problem with the type of epistemic agnosticism that you are espousing is that it is destabilizing and serves to undermine the web of belief (and I am deliberately alluding to Quine here) that you function under. Far from the dualism that you want to discount, you seem to have dualism all your own:

(1) the empirical and scientific method with a materialist bias and
(2) the "value" area that is a place for skepticism, uncertainty and skepticism

And here I thought that logical positivism had been fairly well vanquished from respected discourse with the eradication of the Verificationist Principle... But I suppose a new coat of paint can make even that old car seem respectable for a few drives. For the trained philosophers out there… is it not another historic irony that had the Vienna Circle actually listened to Wittgenstein instead of misreading the Tractatus, the whole logical positivist school could have been avoided?

PS- Keith's (and Lewis') point still stands. They can throw off epistemic justification to an Almighty God because He has presumably done the Infinite Induction necessary for an empirical method to hold and make "objective" pronouncements. The only doubt would be legitimate estimation of the noetic impact of our finite faculties and our potentially great ethical deficiencies in the interpretations of those objective pronouncements. You may take issue with his reason for believing that a particular set of scriptures holds the accurate rendition of those pronouncements, but as far as suggesting that it is epistemically insufficient in any way… Well, I’m sorry you haven’t got a Verificationist Principle to stand on. :-)

One more note....

Having read a substantial portion of your blog - particularly 0ct 12th, 2004 - I realize I have mislabeled you.

You are actually a pragmatist masquerading as a positivist.

Oh, and the AI issue isn't anywhere near as simple as what Eliezer or Ben Goertzel think it is. This isn't to take away from either of their very capable intellects (particularly Ben's). They are just looking at the problem all wrong.

And... don't even get me started on your politics. Based on what I do and who I know, your understanding of the Intelligence situation going into Iraq is beneath your otherwise respectable intellect. I'm not even going to bother citing things here. You've got Google and media archives before 2002 available to you. If you wanted to see the case, you could. Just like your philosophy, you stand behind a system of assumptions that are easily shown to be refuted or self-contradictory. So you hold them as a matter of will and desire, not logic. You're a postmodern pragmatist in self-denial manifesting itself through this vacuous positivism.

At least Richard Rorty has the guts to be consistent and honest about what he thinks.

[minor errata] - Hawkings should have been Hawkins in the previous post

I haven't had time to read all posts but for Tim:
Most excellent response. Like most atheists (bad term here...all atheists are just agnostics), Dr. Logic does not want to do the heavy lifting when it comes to examining the philosophical bias of his argument. Now that Tim has philosophically sliced and diced you, I suggest that you (and the others) ponder on a bit of scripture to understand the problem of evil. Try Isaiah 45:7..."I form the light (Hebrew used here is translated as truth) and create the darkness (Hebrew used here is translated as sin). I make peace and create EVIL. I the Lord do ALL these things." So understanding of why there is evil is very simple.
Your problem is not in the understanding of why there is evil. Your problem is in not understanding the righteousness of God.
Once I have time to read all posts I would like respond on other issues like free will (or the lack thereof) and love.

Keith & Tim,

Sorry if I'm not making myself clear here. When you look for an objective standard of morality (or love, or evil), you're looking for something that doesn't exist per se. My claim is that our brains all have a neural homes for these concepts, but that they are different for each of us. That is, science will show that our intuitive definitions for these things are subjective. I am also saying that, because of the way neural networks find solutions without knowing questions ahead of time, there's no guarantee (and no reason to believe) that a concept like "evil" even has an objective, absolute definition beyond the neuroscientific one.

That said, societies may agree on laws that are consistent with most peoeple's subjective definition of morality.

I agree with you, Keith, that an ethical system should define what is right and what is wrong. Where we disagree is whether there is an one, unique system, and if so, how we should identify it.

Your claims for the Bible as the only source (or even a viable source) of that ethical system are illogical.

1) The Bible isn't self-consistent. For any given action you can probably find one verse in the Bible that tells you to take the actions, and another verse that says otherwise. I would turn the other cheek, but I'm supposed to take an eye for an eye.

2) There are thousands of religious texts, some older than your scriptures. Others have the same pedigree, but for various reasons never made it into the final edit of the Torah or the New Testament. So why are your texts the only valid ones, and all the rest of the worlds religious books false? Certainly, you don't have adequate grounds for ignoring history: there are known cases in which people have written religious texts free from inspiration from supernatural entities. The Book of Mormon and Dianetics come to mind.

In order to gloss-over these two objections (and many more), you have to have some very compelling argument. So far, that argument appears to be that we cannot define evil without the Biblical definition (whatever you decide that to be). Well, that's the whole point of my post. You can only define evil objectively inasmuch as it can be defined neurologically.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and you don't have any evidence. As far as I have been able to tell, you don't even have any independent archeological evidence for the existence of the Biblical character of Jesus. That's a pretty weak case.

Tim,

I hope my previous post has cleared up some of your misconceptions about my argument. As you can see, I do not claim that everything is subjective. I claim that there exist some concepts that are subjective because they are by their nature emergent, nonlinear properties of human brains, and they are not concepts that that are directly representative of externalities.

Logical positivism may have been displaced from most philosophy departments, but not for good reason. The core tenet of logical positivism is that meaning is empirical. Though early versions of LP were flawed, the Verificationist Principle still holds, with minor modifications. To say otherwise is to claim that every proposition that is grammatically correct is also semantically meaningful.

The excuse given for abandoning LP was that imprecision in language made logical positivism impractical. However, this conclusion is unjustified based on the works of Wittgenstein or of Quine. Language can be made as precise as we want it to be by defining and performing more precise experiments. We learn languages (even internal ones) by using empirical measurements, so language cannot have meaning that extends beyond empirical measurements (and, yes, mathematics is empirical, too).

Of course, were the positivist enterprise to succeed, there would be a lot of philosophers out of work, and all of the glamour (i.e., metaphysics) would be gone. There's no "philosophical technology" to validate the work of philosophy departments, so I see no near-term force that will halt or reverse the sad, post-LP retreat into metaphysics.

There will be an answer forthcoming in AI and it will confound this notion that meaning is found through the magic of the brain working on teleologically-free signals. If it were that simple, there would be no way to keep those patterns between agents closely in sync and communication would be impossible. As someone who quotes Descartes on your website, I really shouldn't have to explain why this would be the case - and I don't have to be a dualist either.

Keith, I would like to hear more about this idea. Are you saying you cannot imagine a mechanism that has the observed effects, or are you saying something stronger?

I don't see why the "agents" need a high level of synchronization or cooperation. It seems to me that having some pathways be more dominant than others is all that is required for mental focus. Besides, there's no reason why the actual "self" should be any more continuous than actual vision. Perception is all that counts. Just as there are optical illusions, there are identity illusions: Freudian slips, the subconscious, and rationalization of hidden desires, etc.

P.S. I am not especially enamored with Descartes. I just like the quote.

P.P.S. Since your comments about my political views contained zero information content, they are but a thinly veiled ad hominem attack.

Buffy,

bad term here...all atheists are just agnostics

This statement is false. If I were agnostic, I would believe that the proposition "god exists" might be true or might be false.

However, I believe that propositions about your god are neither true nor false, they are nonsensical.

Is there any experiment you can do that will falsify the following propositions?

a) god is good

b) god exists

c) god created the universe

For example, is there any way you could tell that you were talking to god instead of an alien with advanced technology? Is there any event you could witness that would indicate that god might not be good?

If you say that there is no possible experiment that could falsify these propositions, then you are saying that these propositions are disconnected from all experience. In that case, the propositions are totally meaningless (i.e., they are senseless). Yes, they are grammatically correct, but they have no semantics. You think you know what they mean, but you are confused. They are no more meaningful than "Purple cuts dinosaur squared."

As you can see, this is not agnosticism. It is atheism.

Now, if your proposition were falsifiable, things would be different. If god were a powerful alien, subject to the laws of nature, then I would gladly count myself among the agnostics. Your proposition would be perfectly meaningful, just ridiculously far-fatched.

Finally, you cannot use the authority of the Bible to argue for the Bible's validity when that authority is precisely what you are trying to prove. That's circular reasoning. Perhaps, you have something, um, heavier?

It has become awfully quiet in here. Surely Mr Devens can answer Dr Logic? I would like to see that.

It has become awfully quiet in here. Surely Mr Devens can answer Dr Logic? I would like to see that.

Sorry, been super busy. Honestly haven't even gotten to read the most recent comments. I hope to respond soon.

Just wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten you Dr. Logic. Work has been brutal and I've been covered up.
But first, I want to ask Keith's permission to proceed with the debate. I don't want to hijack his blog to start a presuppositional debate on the existence of God unless he gives permission.
Keith, I await your response. Perhapps the others will weigh in as well.

Permission? I welcome it

Thanks Keith.
Now to set a couple of ground rules..
I may have some intermittant time during the rest of the week to respond but most likely the weekend will be better. So I ask that everyone have patience with response time on my part.
Next, my intent is to prove the existence of the Christian God of the Bible and His Sovereign Authority, not debate Dr. Logic's arbitrary opinions on whether God is real or not.
So, shall we begin?

Dr.Logic,
What say you?

Hi Buffy,

I'm happy to be patient.

You say you don't want to debate my "arbitrary opinions on whether God is real or not."

I hope that isn't one of your ground rules, for, if it were, you could simply categorize all of my rebuttals as "my arbitrary opinions" and not bother to confront them. Whether god is real or not is precisely what we are debating.

While we're talking about ground rules, let's include this one:

You cannot use the authority of the Bible to argue for the Bible's validity when that authority is precisely what you are trying to prove.

Atheists believe that many people contributed to the Bible over the centuries, and that, as such, the Bible is no more truthful than any other political document.

I look forward to reading your proof. Seriously. It's refreshing when someone makes a sincere effort to understand and explain the logical foundations of his or her beliefs. Most people don't care why they believe stuff, they just go with their gut.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it as well.

Good Evening Dr. Logic,
Glad you have engaged. Yes, I can agree to not using the Bible as the authority to argue the existence of God. But, I would like to use it to footnote the reason for the Christian worldview and belief for those that are watching this debate since that is actually what we are debating... the theist (in my case the Christian)worldview vs. the atheistic worldview as it pertains to cogency of knowledge, rationality of thought, intelligibility and so on.
Now I would like to ask that you in turn to present with irrefutable factual basis your proof that God does not exist and not just your opinion. Not personal conjecture. Not referencing the actions of others. Not just the popular rehearsed response. Not just some regurgitation of Michael Martin. Just give me the bottom line.

Agreed?

Still haven't gotten to catch up with the comments here. However, for reference I wanted to link to the post that preceded this one:
http://keithdevens.com/weblog/archive/2005/Jul/04/inductive-principle

(This discussion pretty much migrated from that post.)

Buffy,

Here are two of my core arguments. I will divide definitions of god into two kinds. The first is unverifiable and meaningless, and the second is naturalistic and unworthy of worship.

God Type I
How do we determine whether a proposition has any meaning? We can create propositions by stringing nouns, verbs and adjectives together, but following the grammatical rules of the English language is not sufficient. Pick some words at random, and you may get a proposition that is grammatically correct, but nonsensical, e.g., "humidity cogitates on libertarianism". Similarly, you cannot have a meaningful proposition created out of symbols that are undefined, e.g., "x = (5 p + 4 q) * 7".

So the question is, where does semantic meaning come from? I argue that when we learn language (even our native language), we are creating theories about what words and propositions mean. The first time you ever saw a guy say "what's shaking?" to his friend, and his friend reply "not much," you created a theory about the meaning of the expression "what's shaking?" Since you saw nothing physically shaking, you theorized that the expression meant "how are you feeling?" or "what is going on in your life?" You tested this theory by observing other people use the expression, or by testing it out yourself.

Our entire system of language is built out of many such theories, each one confirmed by empirical evidence.

So, we create theories about the meaning of every proposition, and these theories can only be confirmed or falsified by experience. If you deliberately construct a proposition whose theory of meaning can never be confirmed or falsified, then the proposition itself has no meaning.

If you claim "X is true" and that nothing we ever experience will ever confirm or refute "X is true", then I can make the exact same claim for "X is false". If you claim "God is good" and that nothing we ever observe can convince us otherwise, then I can equally well claim that "God is evil" and that nothing we ever observe will convince you otherwise. This is because you are saying that "God is good" has nothing to do with anything we ever experience. If you believe such things, you have fallen into a trap where everything you see is interpreted as evidence for your proposition, and nothing can be seen as evidence against it. This is a fallacy. An observation, O, cannot be construed as evidence for a proposition, P, unless not observing O is evidence against P.

Now what I have said above applies to the traditional Christian God which is defined as being omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, perfectly good, etc. All these superlatives are stated to be unverifiable even in principle. So, all propositions about this god are nonsensical. We may intuitively think we know what they mean, but we are actually confused. Intuition alone is not an adequate guide to the meaning of language.

God Type II
The argument about semantic meaning does not apply when you are talking about a super-powerful alien being with technology so far above ours as to look like magic. For, in principle, we could attain technology comparable with the alien, and do experiments that expose his parlour tricks. However, neither you nor I would consider such an alien to be god, per se.

A second aspect of atheism is rejection of worship of pure power. Even if an alien created our universe, that would not justify our worshipping that alien. Might does not make right. Suppose that the devil was actually the one god/alien who created the universe. Would it be ethical to do evil because he says so? Would evil then become "right"? I don't think so. In other words, what an alien says is right isn't necessarily so. I don't think that it is right to hold slaves or to stone people to death like the Bible says we must. Even if I believed that the Bible wasn't just made up by humans, I still wouldn't agree with what it has to say. To follow a path arbitrarily specified by the almighty, I would have to sacrifice my conscience and become a collaborator.

In summary, I have made two points here. First, if your propositions about god are not falsifiable (not even in principle), then they are nonsensical. Second, if your propositions about god are falsifiable, then the god you're talking about is an alien subject to the laws of nature (even if those laws are different outside of our universe). In the latter case, you have to not only say why you think that alien exists (the burden of proof is yours not mine), but also why that alien is a god, i.e., why that alien deserves worship.

DL,
Let's take your first premise. In a nutshell, after all the verbosity, what you are actually saying is that all things must be experienced (empirical proof) and since you can't physically experience God then He must not exist.
Is that about right?

Now for your second premise. Basically what your saying is that since you don't agree with Biblical doctrine or the authority of the Scriptures then God does not exist.
Have I got it?

Buffy... he's all yours.

Afterwards, I look forward to correcting his very bad reading of Wittgenstein and Quine but your current train of discussion cuts to the heart of the matter.

Doc Logic, we can trade quantifiers latter...

Buffy,

Let's take your first premise. In a nutshell, after all the verbosity, what you are actually saying is that all things must be experienced (empirical proof) and since you can't physically experience God then He must not exist.

No, you are missing my point. Though it is an oversimplification, I would paraphrase myself as follows:

The only propositions that make any sense (i.e., that have any definition) are those which are falsifiable in principle with sense-data. If your propositions about god (e.g., about his existence) are not falsifiable, then they aren't true or false, but just nonsense.

In other words, I don't claim your god doesn't exist because that would be as much nonsense as claiming he does. Literally, you can't even define your god adequately to make any claims of existence.

Buffy,

Now for your second premise. Basically what your saying is that since you don't agree with Biblical doctrine or the authority of the Scriptures then God does not exist.

Not exactly.

In ancient Rome, the Emperor Trajan was regarded as a living god. He held the power of life and death over entire cities. Was he a god? For some, he was. But not for those who rejected his divinity.

Here's another example. If you watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, you'll be familiar with the character Q (if not, see Q Continuum). The Q have technology so great that they are omnipotent and omniscient by human standards. Would you regard Q as a god? Q's behavior is impish. Does that disqualify him? Does the fact that he didn't create the universe disqualify him? If this is your decision to make, then you agree with me that divinity is in the eye of the beholder.

If you define your god as a member of the Q continuum, then he has god-like powers, but I reject his divinity.

Note that this argument applies to beings that do have scientific definitions. Your personal idea of the Christian God probably doesn't fall into this category.

tim,

Afterwards, I look forward to correcting his very bad reading of Wittgenstein and Quine but your current train of discussion cuts to the heart of the matter.

I think my reading of Wittgenstein most closely parallels that of A.J. Ayer (so I'm in good company). Wittgenstein's great contribution was to recast philosophy as an effort to prevent people from tripping up on language. Alas, the actual mechanics of both the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations were deeply flawed.

DL,

Digging yourself in deeper.

Let's take one point at a time.

Missing your point?

"The only propositions that make any sense (i.e., that have any definition) are those which are falsifiable in principle with sense-data. If your propositions about god (e.g., about his existence) are not falsifiable, then they aren't true or false, but just nonsense."

That statement makes no sense. Therefore you are wrong.

Try this one:
Whatever implies what is false is itself false.

You are self-contradictory so therefore you are wrong.

Next:

"In other words, I don't claim your god doesn't exist because that would be as much nonsense as claiming he does. Literally, you can't even define your god adequately to make any claims of existence."

Define adequately. It is subjective. You have slipped into the trap that most self acclaimed atheists do. You argue with mere opinion and relativisim. You do not have a logical leg to stand on here.

Okay,
Let's do some heavy lifting. If things only exist with empirical observation or otherwise are false or nonsense...explain the existence of the laws of logic. Everyone understands them...they are universal...heck you use them everyday...I await a well reasoned response.

Remember -
"The only propositions that make any sense (i.e., that have any definition) are those which are falsifiable in principle with sense-data."

PS sense-data...is that what makes sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me...laws of logic.

Dl
Have to go to work now...but just a brief note about the second issue.
Interesting you mentioned Q in Star Trek...without realizing it you have made my point.

Do you personally know Q?

Have you met him?

Is he real?

You have seen a representation of a character on TV that has human characteristics, miraculous abilities and transcendental properties that in actuality does not exist. You understand his actions and personality, He is intelligible to you...Get my point?

More when I have time.

Cheers

I'm just spectating, but I can't let you citing Ayer as a good way to read Wittegenstein stand. Like many who misread the Tractatus, Ayer ignores most of the concluding section where Wittgenstein reveals that the intent of the Tratatus was as a reductio ad absurdum. A decent review of his Notebooks from the Nachlass shows that Wittgenstein had abandoned the logicism of Russell and moved to a more intuitionist and, dare I say, "spiritual" view of the origin of the "meaning" of propositions. He was already stumbling into what some AI researchers term the problem of "Original Intentionality." L.W. was so far ahead of his time.

Back to Ayer...

Wittgenstein directly rebuked Ayer's reading of him in a letter in 1935. Wittgenstein also debated Schlick and Waismann's understanding at meetings of the Vienna Circle... This is covered in Ray Monk's biography. Now... he doesn't completely get the Unified Wittgenstein right because he still sees him in phases with some disjunctions. Other researchers with decades of work studying Wittgenstein (Cora Diamond, Rupert Read, Stanley Cavell, Jim Conant, Hilary Putnam, et. al) have more contiguous readings that I would subscribe to.

Ayer and positivists read what they wanted to out of Wittgenstein and ignored what they didn't what to hear. Seems to have started a trend...

Ps- You didn't get the subtlety of Buffy's question... maybe you can pick it up this time.

Buffy,

I said

If your propositions about god (e.g., about his existence) are not falsifiable, then they aren't true or false, but just nonsense.

Your response to my claim suggests that you don't really appreciate what I'm trying to say.

I don't mean that every meaningful proposition about the world is false. That would indeed be silly. I mean that, for every meaningful proposition about the world, you must be able to state what experiment would prove the proposition to be wrong (if it were, in fact, wrong). This is not self-contradictory.

Many theologians would claim that no possible observation will constitute evidence that that their god does not exist. In other words, their claim is "our theory is that we will see the world exactly the way we see the world." They see (fill in the blank) and call it wondrous proof of god's existence, and yet nothing is evidence against his existence.

Buffy, do you subscribe to this point of view? How do you define god?

Indeed, this is the answer to your question of what constitutes "adequate" definition. What experiment can I do that will prove or at least provide evidence that god does not exist?

Q
My Q argument wasn't related to the claims about meaning, but I'm all too happy to address your conflation of the two. Q, as a poetic character, is someone we can intuitively understand. However, intuitive understanding is not adequate. In art and poetry, there is no requirement for logical consistency. For example, take the "Back to the Future" stories. They all make sense to us as long as we don't think about them too much. Yet, if we analyze them closely, we will find that the Back to the Future universe is fatally inconsistent, and riddled with paradoxes. We have an intuitive appreciation for a story that is self-contradictory.

Whether we can intuitively follow a story or work of fiction is entirely different from having logical consistency. In art, we are encouraged to suspend reason and belief. In science and philosophy, you're not allowed to do that.

In philosophy, we have to be clear and logical about our claims. Appealing to "common intuition" is illegal.

So, suppose we stipulate that Star Trek's Q is a well-defined creature, namely, a powerful alien with technology greater than our own. As I said, in that case I am more than happy to claim agnosticism.

Where you get yourself into trouble is when you start ascribing properties to the Q that cannot be measured, not even in principle.

Logic
Logic is a mechanism for tracking consistency. A priori, the world need not be self-consistent. Our experience shows us that the universe is consistent and that the logic is useful. If the universe had not been self-consistent, a) knowledge would probably be impossible, and b), if it were possible, we would not have thought logic to be useful or notable. You can create your own logics, or even try to operate without logics. However, empirically, logic works.

Mathematics is an extension of logic (no doubt, tim will want to debate this). Consider Fermat's Last Theorem. It took centuries for mathematicians to prove it. Even some of the recent proofs were found to have flaws in them. This demonstrates that we cannot even be certain of mathematical claims because we might have made a mistake in our calculations. We can repeat the calculations and reduce uncertainties to very low levels, but the process is still empirical. Consistency, (and consequently, logic and mathematics) are empirical properties of the universe.

If the universe were not fully self-consistent, we should expect to be surrounded by logical paradoxes. We would find that historical events both happened and did not happen, etc.

DL,
Of course I know what your trying to say...I understand wholly. You are borrowing my Christian Worldview to make your points. I don't mind. Just give credit where it is due.

"I don't mean that every meaningful proposition about the world is false. That would indeed be silly."

See, now backing down didn't hurt so bad did it?

"I mean that, for every meaningful proposition about the world, you must be able to state what experiment would prove the proposition to be wrong (if it were, in fact, wrong). This is not self-contradictory."

Do you know every meaningful proposition about the world? Have you seen and tested every experiment for infallibility or are you just taking someone elses word on the outcome.. That takes a lot more faith than I have.

"Many theologians would claim that no possible observation will constitute evidence that that their god does not exist. In other words, their claim is "our theory is that we will see the world exactly the way we see the world." They see (fill in the blank) and call it wondrous proof of god's existence, and yet nothing is evidence against his existence."

Which theologians? Name them. DL, once again you are missing the point of the the debate. I am not arguing the existence of the Christian God evidentially. I am arguing pre-suppositionally.

"So, suppose we stipulate that Star Trek's Q is a well-defined creature, namely, a powerful alien with technology greater than our own. As I said, in that case I am more than happy to claim agnosticism."

Well, Dr. Logic another revelation. That wasn't so hard. Take a bow.

"Where you get yourself into trouble is when you start ascribing properties to the Q that cannot be measured, not even in principle."

Actually you are the one in trouble here. An atheistic world view can not make sense of the unmeasurable, miraculous properties of a Holy God. You have to borrow from the Christian Worldview the ability to understand such phenomena as miracles, transcendental arguments, Christ rising from the dead and such. I can make perfect sense of those things because I believe in a Sovereign God that directs my every step.

DL, I asked about the "existence of the laws of logic". Don't make me have to go over the argument again. That would be embarassing for you and wastes my time. The laws of logic are abstract. You can't touch, see, smell, taste or hear them. Therefore under your set of rules they don't exist. They can not both exist and not exist.

"If the universe were not fully self-consistent, we should expect to be surrounded by logical paradoxes. We would find that historical events both happened and did not happen, etc."

How do you know that the universe if self-consistent? Have you seen everything in the universe? Have you witnessed every event? You make the case for me. It can't be that God exists and does not exist.

You are begging the question.

Now that I have your attention ... here's the answer you have been waiting for...

The proof of God's existence is that without him you cannot prove anything.

The reason you are having such a hard time staying on track here is that you have a history of hit and run debates with evidentialists bloviating some unschooled gobble de gook that they can't respond to because they have spent their time memorizing trivia. I have asked you some very simple questions. You have failed to respond with any modicum of reasonable thought. You have skirted the issue time and time again. Your replies have been arbitrary and self refuting. If you don't see that, believe me others do. You see I can account and make sense of uniformity of the universe, moral absolutes, the laws of mathematics, the laws of logic and so on because I know there is a Sovereign God that directs all things.

Sam,
Haven't heard from you lately. You want to weigh in?

I have been lurking here, following this debate with some interest. At this point, I would have to give Buffy the edge, having backed DL into a corner --- so DL, what happened to your defense of atheism?

DL wrote: "If the universe had not been self-consistent, a) knowledge would probably be impossible, and b), if it were possible, we would not have thought logic to be useful or notable."

This is the same logical pattern used to justify the Anthropic Principle -- Cogito ergo mundus talis est (I think, therefore the world is as it is).

DL is saying that because logic is of such import (an unexamined assumption), the universe must therefore be self-consistent ... that a self-consistent universe will give rise to a useful set of cognitive rules we can call logic.

Given the syllogistic kinship between DL's logic and the Anthropic Principle, DL evidently supports the logic of some flavor of Creation -- perhaps it is but a short step to enlightenment.

An interesting note from DL's worldview is the inability to acknowledge a higher authority no matter what evidence is proffered. DL, it seems, will always suspect the proverbial burning bush to merely be Q, and will require further proof. But since Q can always fool him, DL would never be convinced that God exists, regardless of the evidence. Hence, faith is never a function of evidence. But rather, evidence can only support faith.

See, now backing down didn't hurt so bad did it?

Well, Dr. Logic another revelation. That wasn't so hard. Take a bow.

I find such comments to be childish and rude.

I have not conceded anything at all in this debate. Go back to my first argument and check for yourself.

"I mean that, for every meaningful proposition about the world, you must be able to state what experiment would prove the proposition to be wrong (if it were, in fact, wrong). This is not self-contradictory." Do you know every meaningful proposition about the world? Have you seen and tested every experiment for infallibility or are you just taking someone elses word on the outcome.. That takes a lot more faith than I have.

You really aren't paying attention, are you? My statement doesn't say that I have to know every meaningful proposition. It says only that for any given proposition to be meaningful to me, I must know what I will see differently as a consequence of it. All meaningful propositions are scientific.

An atheistic world view can not make sense of the unmeasurable, miraculous properties of a Holy God.

Neither can you, and that's what philosophy is trying to tell you. Just closing your eyes, clicking your heels and saying eternity three times isn't a method of "making sense."

You have to borrow from the Christian Worldview the ability to understand such phenomena as miracles, transcendental arguments, Christ rising from the dead and such. I can make perfect sense of those things because I believe in a Sovereign God that directs my every step.

I have as much intuition for these things as you do. The difference is that I know when I am deluding myself.

The laws of logic are abstract. You can't touch, see, smell, taste or hear them. Therefore under your set of rules they don't exist. They can not both exist and not exist.

No, the laws of logic are more than abstract. Logic and mathematics are computable, and that makes them as real as you and me. Is the product of 5255 and 25698 equal to 135042990? How would you know? Thermodynamics applies to computation. Computation requires energy. So computation is empirical. If I repeat a computation (correctly) I get the same answer every time. It is meaningful in the sense that I can tell a child how to do multiplication, even if that child does not understand the correlation between the calculation and any application of multiplication. The steps in the calculation are no different from the steps in any physical experiment.

How do you know that the universe is self-consistent? Have you seen everything in the universe? Have you witnessed every event? You make the case for me. It can't be that God exists and does not exist.

I don't have to know that the universe is self-consistent, and that's the point. Its consistency (so far) is an empirical fact. I don't have to walk on every planet in the universe to know about gravity. I can use what I know about our solar neighborhood to land on the moon or predict the motions of Pluto. I don't rule out the possibility that there are other regions of spacetime where gravity behaves in ways never seen before. I don't rule out the possibility that local laws of gravity might one day shift.

You see I can account and make sense of uniformity of the universe, moral absolutes, the laws of mathematics, the laws of logic and so on because I know there is a Sovereign God that directs all things.

This is utterly illogical. You cannot argue that X is true just because you say there is some magic rabbit who makes it so. That is a non-argument. It is an axiomatic statement of your final objective. As such, you don't even need any chain of reasoning at all. I'm sorry, but this isn't a theological "get out of jail free" card.

DL,

Can you answer one simple question:

Do you believe in the concept of infinity?

This is a concept accepted in most modern mathematics and readily used in statistical mechanics (and therefore in Quantum Field Theory and related areas).

Is there any measurement that could be done BY MAN to falsify or verify infinity?

DL,

"I find such comments to be childish and rude."

You responded to tim on 7/18/05:
"P.P.S. Since your comments about my political views contained zero information content, they are but a thinly veiled ad hominem attack."

You can dish it out but you can't take I see.

"You really aren't paying attention, are you? My statement doesn't say that I have to know every meaningful proposition. It says only that for any given proposition to be meaningful to me, I must know what I will see differently as a consequence of it. All meaningful propositions are scientific."

Who's not paying attention? You're the one who stated that "for every meaningful proposition"...and so on...not me. I have just used your own words here. If you've not witnessed every (all) meaningful propositions then how can you say that they are scientific? You can't. Inconsistent again.

"Neither can you, and that's what philosophy is trying to tell you. Just closing your eyes, clicking your heels and saying eternity three times isn't a method of "making sense."

To paraphrase you earlier....
"I find such comments to be childish and rude."

I am still waiting for you to engage in the debate.

"I have as much intuition for these things as you do. The difference is that I know when I am deluding myself."

Another Ad Hominem. Can't you do better than this?

"So computation is empirical. If I repeat a computation (correctly) I get the same answer every time. It is meaningful in the sense that I can tell a child how to do multiplication, even if that child does not understand the correlation between the calculation and any application of multiplication. The steps in the calculation are no different from the steps in any physical experiment."

How do you know you get the same answer every time..Have you witnessed every time the computation has been done? Ever? If you have not then you can not make a logically fallacious statement such as that. With your worldview you can not account for that. My Christian Worldview can. I can account for the consistency in outcome of computation because I know that there is a Sovereign God that holds all things together through Christ.

Isn't that Philosophy? What do we know. How do we know what we know and using what we know how do we live our lives. It is as simple as that.

"I don't have to know that the universe is self-consistent, and that's the point. "
Well exactly. I don't either because there is a transcendant, omnipotent, omniscience Holy God who has revealed Himself to us.. who has promised to hold all together until Christ comes again.

"This is utterly illogical. You cannot argue that X is true just because you say there is some magic rabbit who makes it so. That is a non-argument. It is an axiomatic statement of your final objective. As such, you don't even need any chain of reasoning at all. I'm sorry, but this isn't a theological "get out of jail free" card."

You make my case about your worldview. You can not argue that there is no God because you say it is so. That is just mere opinion. We are not arguing opinion here. It can not be that X exists and X does not exist...you are the one that set that example up. You can't answer the question of the existence of God without using my Christian Worldview. So much for Doctor LOGIC.

tim,

Do you believe in the concept of infinity?

Yes. Infinity is a recipe for a mathematical manipulation. x goes to infinity means that x grows beyond any assigned value. The concept is well-formed and meaningful because you can describe the mathematical steps required to apply it.

Is there any measurement that could be done BY MAN to falsify or verify infinity?

Inifinity isn't a proposition. Infinity is a computational act, not a specific number. As such, it does not "exist" any more than any other action verb exists. One cannot say that "folding" exists, even though folding is a well-defined concept. Like other action verbs, infinity can be used in meaningful propositions, but it is not itself a proposition.

Buffy,

I apologize for being snarky. No matter what was written to me, I have no excuse for responding in kind. I shall endeavor courteous and diplomatic in future.

"If I repeat a computation (correctly) I get the same answer every time."...How do you know you get the same answer every time..Have you witnessed every time the computation has been done?

I stand corrected. I am not certain that you are guaranteed to get the same result every time, even though this has been the case throughout the history of mathematics. Allow me to restate my point. I do not rely on the inductive principle as an axiom to support my argument.

Personally, I adopt the inductive principle on the strategic grounds that, if induction were invalid, there would be no way to win the game of life. My apparently tangential comment about induction will have relevance below.

So, back to what I was saying (minus the induction bit):

It is meaningful in the sense that I can tell a child how to do multiplication, even if that child does not understand the correlation between the calculation and any application of multiplication. The steps in the calculation are no different from the steps in any physical experiment.

Therefore, in answer to your query about whether mathematical propositions are meaningful by my standards, the answer is yes.

My Christian Worldview can. I can account for the consistency in outcome of computation because I know that there is a Sovereign God that holds all things together through Christ.

Two questions. Your statement can be rewritten as:

"I can account for the consistency in outcome of computation because I know that there is X."

where X is "a Sovereign God that holds all things together through Christ"

Why can I not substitute, say, "the principle of absolute logical consistency" for X?

My second question is addressed to the actual meaning of your proposition. What would happen if you could not account for the consistency of computation? Or of the self-consistency of the universe for that matter?

As I see it, our calculations would be unaffected, and our confidence in induction would remain unchanged (my strategy above). Your proposition represents a statement of absolute faith in induction. It's not really a meaningful proposition because your proposition cannot be true or false. Instead, your proposition is a statement of affirming of your faith in induction. An analogy would be the statement "hooray for milk chocolate!", which is neither true nor false, but expresses a preference.

Not Sam,

DL is saying that because logic is of such import (an unexamined assumption), the universe must therefore be self-consistent ... that a self-consistent universe will give rise to a useful set of cognitive rules we can call logic.

This is quite close, but perhaps not fully accurate. I'm not saying that the universe will always be consistent, just that it has been in the past. I choose to apply induction here because I have no next move otherwise. I have no guarantee of winning (consistency could be fleeting), but I guarantee a loss otherwise.

I wouldn't say that my assumption was unexamined. Without logic, it would be impossible to tell the difference between a proposition, P, and its negation, ~P. It would seem then that knowledge itself would be impossible without logic. Also, logic would be of little value in a universe which was inconsistent because it would be impossible to correlate sequential observations.

Given the syllogistic kinship between DL's logic and the Anthropic Principle, DL evidently supports the logic of some flavor of Creation -- perhaps it is but a short step to enlightenment.

Please explain this. There are many forms of the Anthropic Principle. The one I subscribe to (based on my confidence in self-consistency and induction) is the one which states the necessary consistency conditions for our existence, i.e., we cannot exist in an environment incompatible with that existence. I don't see the connection to creation.

An interesting note from DL's worldview is the inability to acknowledge a higher authority no matter what evidence is proffered. DL, it seems, will always suspect the proverbial burning bush to merely be Q, and will require further proof. But since Q can always fool him, DL would never be convinced that God exists, regardless of the evidence.

This is well-put. If you claim that an entity called Q exists and can alight non-flammable plants, I can be convinced to raise my confidence level in your claim by seeing the burning bush. The problem arises when you ascribe to Q some property which cannot be measured, even in principle.

I was actually trying to determine under what conditions worship is justified. If Q were a naturalistic phenomena, should we worship him? Is the definition of god just a person with far superior power? Does might make right?

Divinity is in the eye of the beholder.

Hence, faith is never a function of evidence.

Faith is that which is accepted as a basis for strategy without evidence.

But rather, evidence can only support faith.

My indictment of metaphysics is a little deeper than this. Statements of faith are not propositions that can be true or false. There is a temptation to regard empirical facts as evidence of the veracity of faith, when this isn't really the case.

For example, if I say "hooray for chocolate!", this isn't a true or false proposition, except as far as it is a proposition about my preference. So, the exception aside, no experiment can ever falsify my statement because it has no truth value, positive or negative.

If, in my worldview, the laws of chocolate were somehow used to "explain" other facts, e.g., that black currants taste good (because both have dark color), then it is easy to get confused and claim that the sweetness of black currants is evidence of my cheers for chocolate.

In religion, it seems to be the case that an affirmation of faith is treated as a true-false proposition (or equivalent to such), and that all empirical facts are interpreted as evidence for the affirmation. So, "god has property X" is incorrectly regarded as a true-false proposition, when the proposition admits no mechanism of falsification.

DL,
Apology accepted. Interesting comment about the "game of life".

Now for your first question.

"I can account for the consistency in outcome of computation because I know that there is X."

where X is "a Sovereign God that holds all things together through Christ"

Why can I not substitute, say, "the principle of absolute logical consistency" for X?"

For the Christian Worldview God is a necessarily existent being. He exists in every imaginable and unimaginable situation. He is not the result of causation. He was, is and always will be. God presupposes Logic. Logic is based on God's character. In other words, Logic is the very nature of God. Because of the neccessary relationship between God and Logic if God did not exist neither would logic and the world would be chaos.
Scripture tells us that. Hence, mathematical computation and the understanding thereof, the sun always rising in the East, sufficient gravity on Earth to hold us down and so on would not be consistent and no series of experiments could give us the universally undeniable evidence of that expectation.
Under your worldview you could substitute anything for "X". You could say that you can account for a candy bar for the consistency of computational outcome...but that would be silly and wrong. Since you have not witnessed all empirical evidence you can not be sure of consistent results. In arguing for the contrary, either God does or He does not provide the principal of absolute consistency. You have said that submitted that you can not account for the consistency of a variety of things. My worldview not only permits but supports that consistency.

Now your next question is actually headed for the issue of miracles. How can a consistent world actually explain the issue of miracles (unexplanable phenomena)? In my Christian Worlview miracles are a special(extaordinary)vivid revelation of God to His creation. In your worldview you cannot account for them.
They are unexplanable phenomena.

"As I see it, our calculations would be unaffected, and our confidence in induction would remain unchanged (my strategy above). Your proposition represents a statement of absolute faith in induction. It's not really a meaningful proposition because your proposition cannot be true or false. Instead, your proposition is a statement of affirming of your faith in induction. An analogy would be the statement "hooray for milk chocolate!", which is neither true nor false, but expresses a preference."

As I have stated, you are borrowing my Christian worldview to explain consistency in nature, mathematics, ect. In your worldview you cannot be sure of anything because you can not experience everything. It's really not that hard to understand.

You speak of my self affirming faith. That's a bit presumptuous of you isn't it? I have presented to you a cogent, well- reasoned argument for the existence of God by using your own argument to the contrary. It is not my place to convince you to believe, only to defend the Christian Worldview. I think I have done that effectively. You have not been able to defend yours. Once again you have just speculated on my proposition with mere opinion. You may want to re-examine your pre-suppositions.

Buffy,

It is not my place to convince you to believe, only to defend the Christian Worldview.

Okay, I think I understand what you are trying to say. You simply want me to defend my claims that god is not a meaningful concept. This is acceptable, but you cannot use your "worldview" to critique my claims. If you did, then my rebuttal would inevitably have to confront your worldview. Under these rules of engagement, you can only win by showing that my claims are contradictory, which they are not.

I have presented to you a cogent, well- reasoned argument for the existence of God by using your own argument to the contrary.

I disagree.

I have described a logically consistent system for assessing meaning in language.

Since you have not witnessed all empirical evidence you can not be sure of consistent results.

I don't have to be sure, so I don't have to witness all empirical evidence. This is really a straw man. Personally, I can accept that tomorrow there could be no laws of physics whatsoever. I'm just not betting on it.

How can a consistent world actually explain the issue of miracles (unexplanable phenomena)?

First, even in a consistent world, we are not guaranteed to be able to explain all events. For example, in the case of the perfect crime, we may not be able to identify the guilty party. Such a crime would be unexplained, but not unexplainable.

Second, the world may not be consistent, in which case, violations of the laws of physics are theoretically permitted. No such violations have ever been observed.

Indeed, no miracles or supernatural events have ever been reliably observed. That does not prove that they have never occurred, but none have ever occurred under scientifically accepted rules of observation. James Randi has for many years had $1 million awaiting anyone with supernatural abilities who can prove it in the lab. Meanwhile, it is a documented scientific fact that people will believe in fake miracles, and we see such reports all the time.

As I have stated, you are borrowing my Christian worldview to explain consistency in nature, mathematics, ect. In your worldview you cannot be sure of anything because you can not experience everything. It's really not that hard to understand.

No, I am borrowing nothing. Consistency does not require an explanation. It is an empirical fact. Tomorrow, that could all change. Again, my optimal strategy is to assume that consistency will not be rescinded.

DL,

Just a brief note on my defending the Christian worldview. It is not my place to make you believe in God. That is the work of the Holy Spirit.
I have shown that the atheist worldview does not hold up no matter how hard you try to defend it,

It is is relativistic:

"I don't have to be sure, so I don't have to witness all empirical evidence. This is really a straw man. Personally, I can accept that tomorrow there could be no laws of physics whatsoever. I'm just not betting on it."
That sure takes a lot a faith in a belief system that is based on no faith.

Inconsistent:

"First, even in a consistent world, we are not guaranteed to be able to explain all events. For example, in the case of the perfect crime, we may not be able to identify the guilty party. Such a crime would be unexplained, but not unexplainable.

You may not be able to explain consistency with your worldview but in a Christian Worldview I can account for the explantion. You just don't like to answer.

And mere opinion:

"I don't have to be sure, so I don't have to witness all empirical evidence. This is really a straw man. Personally, I can accept that tomorrow there could be no laws of physics whatsoever. I'm just not betting on it."

What an interesting thing to say since you have acclaimed the total opposite in your earlier posts.
I have used your formula that if not X then there can not be X. If God does not exists then it can not be that God exists. You can't have it both ways.

I have asked you for proof to the contrary. You have offered nothing but arbitrary conjecture.

"No, I am borrowing nothing. Consistency does not require an explanation. It is an empirical fact. Tomorrow, that could all change. Again, my optimal strategy is to assume that consistency will not be rescinded."

Most scientists and researchers would be surprised to here that theory.

You have responded to tim who has submitted the same points but is a different fashion. He has been quite eloquent. I am much more simple. Just as Paul debated the philosophers at Mars Hill, sometimes the most simple argument carries the greatest impact. But it not up to me to open your mind.. God choses whom He will quicken. .

Buffy,

I have shown that the atheist worldview does not hold up no matter how hard you try to defend it,

You have not done this, not in the slightest degree.

Let me take another approach with a new analogy.

Suppose we're playing Blackjack at Honest Joe's casino. No cheating has ever been recorded at Honest Joe's.

The dealer has 10 showing. Both of us have a 7 and a 2. Should you and I take another card?

We cannot prove that our next card will be sufficient to beat the dealer. That's fair, this is a game of chance, after all.

However, we also cannot prove that the deck is not stacked against us (e.g., a casino employee has manually selected our upcoming cards to be deuces and 3's). Though no cheating has ever been recorded in this casino, this fact does not constitute total proof that no cheating will ever occur.

Yet, we both know that if we don't take a card, we are guaranteed to lose.

I don't need absolute certainty that the dealer has not stacked the deck against me. No faith is required. Simply put, I have no chance of winning if I don't take a card, and at least some chance otherwise. Logically, I should take a card. I ask the dealer for another card.

In contrast, you demand absolute certainty that the game isn't rigged. No person at the table, including casino security, can tell you with total, unerring certainty that the game is fair (hey, it could be an inside job).

Since no measurable entity can guarantee fairness, you invent an unmeasurable one. You theorize that there is an invisible Inspector who guarantees the fairness of the game. Though the Inspector is totally invisible, you claim that he must exist if for no other reason than to guarantee fairness of the Blackjack table. Furthermore, you claim that, it would be impossible to even play Blackjack without the existence of the Inspector.

Finally, with your self-assured certainty in the existence of the Inspector, you tell the dealer that you want another card.

We're both dealt 10's and we both beat the dealer.

This is a good analogy for our debate so far. As this analogy shows, there is no need whatsoever for the Inspector to exist at all.

You may argue that the risk of fraud is too high at the casino, but I would answer that it's the only game in town, so we have to live with it, fair or not.

When asked how we might otherwise know of the Inspector's existence, you answer by saying that he will reveal himself in rare, miraculous cases of... cheating! Indeed, some players have reported cheating in the past (e.g., they claimed to have seen the dealer's up card change during a hand), but whenever the casino security tapes are reviewed, no evidence of cheating can be found.

Of course, the premise about the Inspector guaranteeing fairness of the game is really just a smokescreen. The real reason that the Inspector was invented was to guarantee that players can win every time you leave the casino. It is said that those who leave a tip for the Inspector are guaranteed a net payoff on their way out of the casino. Curiously, no one ever gets out of the casino alive, and the Inspector never collects his tips.

Wow, you guys have been busy. I 'll try to get through all of this in the next few days, then I'll see if I can contribute something.

DL,
I'm really rushed this morning so I won't be able to respond in full, but let's just for a moment take your analogy about Blackjack. Once again you are arguing for evidence. Evidence of equality. Evidence of winning or losing. Evidence of fairness.

You are still missing the point, and by now I think that it is part of the game you play. As I said before, you probably have a history of arguing this way. Your evidence against mine. Then what is real is in the eye of the beholder. (Relativism)

My proposition is not in the evidence. My proposition is you can not even understand (account for) the meaning of (the evidence) what card wins, or whether winning is better than losing with your worldview.

How do you know what is fair or not? The one who walks away with all the marbles may not know what the marbles are for or why it is a good thing.

I'm asking you to dig deeper.

Got to go now. I'm replay to the analogy later.

A friend of mine has pointed out that my Blackjack argument has another requirement: Before you are offered another card, the dealer reveals that he has 17 total and that he must stand on 17.

If the dealer does not reveal his hole card, there's a possibility that the dealer has 12-16 total, and could go bust if he takes cards. In that scenario, you could win even if you refuse cards. Having the dealer reveal that his hole card is a 7 resolves this problem.

DL, did your friend also point out the fact that you have ignored Buffy's most recent comment, the essence of which effectively reduces your entire Blackjack argument moot?

Not Sam,

Buffy stated a position without an explanation. I thought Buffy might be coming back to provide one.

Buffy has to give an example of a proposition about the world that, in the atheist worldview, is paradoxical, but which is soluble in the Christian worldview.

Buffy keeps using the expression "account for". Do you know what she means by this? There's no "accounting for", there is only logic. Things either compute or they don't. Whether we feel happy about them is irrelevant.

Moreover, one cannot claim something as a prerequisite for all elements of logic because that would be going outside of logic, and outside of argumentation. Such prerequisites cannot be logically justified.

DL,
I am going to respond but I don't have time right now. I'll try to get back to you later in the week.

DL,
I've got a fe minutes here. So, looking at you analogy about Blackjack at the Casino....Why play at all?

Buffy,

Why survive? Why be happy? Why have a coherent philosophy?

You cannot argue that your god is prior to your survival instinct or your desire for emotional well-being.

The purpose of philosophy is to understand whether our behaviors are consistent across different domains. We care about consistency because we don't want to undo with our left hand that which we have done with our right. For example, is it consistent to believe in your god and not worship him? Or to not believe in your god and yet still worship him? Or to believe, but torture people? If you think these questions are important, then they are important before you have answered them. You are admitting that the questions are important because the consequences are important, and the consequences are important for material and emotional reasons.

If you don't care that your life is inconsistent, if you don't care that your actions in one sphere undo your actions in another, then philosophy is totally unimportant. Yet you claim that having a coherent philosophy is important. Merely by philosophizing about god, you are admitting an a priori interest in global consistency and the material and emotional benefits it brings. I'm sorry, but god is not prior to these things.

Without logic, which guarantees consistency, philosophy would be a total waste of time. BTW, you cannot argue that god is somehow prior to logic because you cannot argue outside of logic itself.

DL,

"The purpose of philosophy is to understand whether our behaviors are consistent across different domains."

I always like to take it back to basics because I'm a rather simple person.

Philosophy...come from the Greek Words Phileo (M) (philein - to have a passing affection for or a non-committed love such as I have a love for my 57 Chevy..or I have a crush on Sean Connery...it requires no love or conditions in return) and sophia (F) a gnostic term for knowledge, learning, wisdom...not acquired by intellect but rather by a sensual source or feeling or emotions.

Logic comes from the Greek word Logos- an ancient term meaning word or Truth from a universal eminent force.

As stated for you from PBS (your kinda tv)
"The Greek philosopher Heraclitus appears to be the first to have used the word logos to refer to a rational divine intelligence, which today is sometimes referred to in scientific discourse as the "mind of God." The early Greek philosophical tradition known as Stoicism, which held that every human participates in a universal and divinely ordained community, then used the Logos doctrine as a principle for human law and morality. The Stoics believed that to achieve freedom, happiness, and meaning one should attune one's life to the wisdom of God's will."

I think that old Heraclitus has something on you with this one.

As I have stated before...Philosophy is what do we know..how do we know what we know...and now that we know it how do we live our lives. An atheist worldview gives us no hope on living our lives in any coherent manner. You have stated as such through your're pragmatic approach to this debate. You have a lot of faith in living in an inconsistent manner. I don't have enough faith to do that.

"For example, is it consistent to believe in your god and not worship him? "

No...Judas Ischariot is a prime example.

"Or to not believe in your god and yet still worship him?"

No...lots of people don't believe in the actual Triune God of the Bible and yet "worship another Jesus".

"Or to believe, but torture people?"

Depends on which people you are talking about...you mistakenly think that all professing Christians are the same. All that profess are not Christians. You should study the subject more to get a clear understanding of it.

"If you think these questions are important, then they are important before you have answered them. You are admitting that the questions are important because the consequences are important, and the consequences are important for material and emotional reasons."

What I believe is important is that you still have no real defense of why you cannot disprove the existence of a Holy God. You have no cogent argument. Just a lot of rationalizations from mere opinion that goes nowhere. Remember YOU set the formula...If X does not exist then it can not be that X exists...You've not proven to me that X does not exist.

What I have submitted ..that you could not even debate the concept without knowledge of the subject alone negates your proposition. In a public debate situation, you would have been laughed out of the hall. I am a bit more lienient because I have been where you are right now and can account for your inability to make sense. God graciously and mercifully chose me to be one of His and I can go forth and defend my faith.
You on the other hand are inconsistent and arbitrary in your reasoning giving way once again to mere opinion. You have asked for the evidence via way of experiment. Then when you admitted to not being able to verify every experiment and outcome you tried to change your stance to acceptance of inconsistency and hope for normality. That's pragmatic and useless in intellectual discussion. I hope you don't intend to still try to defend that silly position. You're not doing atheists any great good right now.

"Without logic, which guarantees consistency, philosophy would be a total waste of time. BTW, you cannot argue that god is somehow prior to logic because you cannot argue outside of logic itself."

How do you know logic is consistent? You've already stated that you hope for consistency but are willing to settle for less. Does that sound logical to you? Well if it does, then you're a legion of one. Your unargued bias is really laid bare here.

"If you don't care that your life is inconsistent, if you don't care that your actions in one sphere undo your actions in another, then philosophy is totally unimportant. Yet you claim that having a coherent philosophy is important. Merely by philosophizing about god, you are admitting an a priori interest in global consistency and the material and emotional benefits it brings. I'm sorry, but god is not prior to these things."

How do you know? Were you there? Did you witness the all of history? Mere Opinion.

See how silly you're claims sound?

Enough bloviating DL....just give me the simple skinny here. Prove that the God of the Bible does not exist.

I stumbled across this blog while looking for commentary on CS Lewis's books, but I'm glad I did.

I myself am a member of the Wisconsin Evengelical Lutheran Synod (WELS).

I would like to offer doctorlogic proof that we know there is a god.

There are three ways we can know that God exists.

1. Nature
2. Conscience.
3. the Bible

Since you do not accept the Bible, I will explain the first two.

1. Nature. According to your logical science, the 2nd law of thermodynamics states that matter can be niether created or destroyed. Therefore something must have created the world, it couldn't have come into existence by chance. Also, the something that created the world must be above even the laws of nature.

2. Your conscience. You know right and wrong. That comes from your conscience. Your conscience also bothers you when you do something wrong. Why? Because you will get punished, even if nobody knows about it. That tells you there is a god who will hold you accountable.

Can you logically reject nature and your conscience?

Buffy, sorry if I am cutting in on your discussion, but this should help get your point across that god exists. I'm surprised you haven't used this stuff yet.

I will try to check this site in case doctorlogic or anyone else respond's to this.

Buffy,

I have two posts for you. The first is a direct response to your last message.

You responded by talking about the origins of the words "philosophy" and "logic". I have no idea why because these origins have no bearing on our conversation. They are no more relevant to our conversation than arachnids are to HTTP.

An atheist worldview gives us no hope on living our lives in any coherent manner.

Mine is far more coherent than yours.

You have a lot of faith in living in an inconsistent manner. I don't have enough faith to do that.

Now you're making stuff up. I said that one cannot prove that the universe will be consistent tomorrow, and that all we can do is assume it will be consistent. Remember the Blackjack analogy? Does it take faith to take another card when you know you will lose otherwise?

And nothing I have said has anything to do with "living in an inconsistent manner."

"Or to believe, but torture people?" Depends on which people you are talking about...you mistakenly think that all professing Christians are the same.

You're missing the point again. It doesn't matter whether Christians torture people in this context. The issue is whether the compatibility of torture and Christianty is important to you. I'll take that as a yes.

"If you think these questions are important, then they are important before you have answered them. You are admitting that the questions are important because the consequences are important, and the consequences are important for material and emotional reasons." What I believe is important is that you still have no real defense of why you cannot disprove the existence of a Holy God.

You are totally dodging my question!!!

In a public debate situation, you would have been laughed out of the hall. I am a bit more lienient because I have been where you are right now and can account for your inability to make sense.

Oh, thank you for being so lenient! You are the one who would be laughed out of the hall.

How do you know logic is consistent?

Logic is consistent by definition. It is that which defines contradiction.

"Merely by philosophizing about god, you are admitting an a priori interest in global consistency and the material and emotional benefits it brings. I'm sorry, but god is not prior to these things." How do you know? Were you there? Did you witness the all of history?

Buffy, you don't seem to understand the meaning of the word prior. In this context, it refers to logical predication, not temporal location. Hey, I'll be lenient.

Buffy,

Part II of my response. This is a history of the debate so far.

You wanted me to explain my reasoning for being an atheist.

I explained that the meaning of a given proposition is the method of that proposition's verification or falsification. In that case, the proposition that "god exists" is nonsensical without the ability to do any kind of experimental or computational test. Your god doesn't have a meaningful definition - one cannot state that "god exists" because no thing can exist independently of its observable (or potentially observable) properties. This is the definition of the verb "to exist". For example, an apple does not exist independently of having an apple shape, an apple taste, apple weight, appletree DNA, etc. or at least one of the observables commonly associated with apples. Likewise, your god's existence makes no difference in any experiment or computation. If I calculate pi (3.1415926...), the answer comes out the same whether your god exists or not.

My philosophy as stated above is as solid as a rock. It has no missing pieces that I can discern, and allows me to live my life as richly and well as any other man.

Your criticism of my philosophy rests on the accusation that logical positivism is missing some magic ingredient that you have yet to define. For example, you claim that your god is a prerequisite for logic and for human desire, and that consequently, my philosophy is missing something. However, you have been unable to define your god, nor state how this meaningless, three-letter symbol actually does anything other than guarantee that the universe is consistent. A guarantee, I might add, that I have shown is wholly unnecessary.

So, in summary, I have shown you that god is a nonsensical term that exists only inasmuch as it is a linguistic confusion in your mind.

Allow me to demonstrate: Suppose I declare that something called DFGH exists. DFGH is independent of any measurable quality, and DFGH is reponsible for the world being the way it is. Prove me wrong? You cannot. I give you no opportunity to do so because there is nothing you can ever calculate or measure that will contradict my proposition. The problem is that there are an infinite number of such meaningless entities, yours among them. I can even state that "DFGH does not exist" and that the world is the way it is because of this lack of existence. This negated proposition (DFGH does not exist) has equal support from observation (including calculation) as "DFGH exists". Thus, every proposition that has no empirical support is neither true nor false, except within a arbitrary, self-contained mathematical system.

So, to conclude this debate, I shall restate what you must do to make any substantive progress (you have made none thus far). You must provide the method of calculation or the method of experiment that differentiates your position from mine. If you cannot do this, then you cannot even define your god. I understand that there are no empirical facts from the physical world to support your claims, so you want to stick with pure logic where possible. Fine. Go ahead and show me what logical computation fails if god does not exist, and how that calculation works when god does exist.

a WELS member:

According to your logical science, the 2nd law of thermodynamics states that matter can be neither created or destroyed. Therefore something must have created the world, it couldn't have come into existence by chance. Also, the something that created the world must be above even the laws of nature.

Since you appear interested in physics, I suggest you take a high school physics class. The second law of thermodynamics states that, in a closed system, entropy always increases.

For your information, matter is created and destroyed every day in every nuclear reaction in every star in the known universe. It is the difference in rest mass between nuclei that provides the energy (E = mc^2) for starlight and the resistance against gravitational collapse.

You may also want to read about the Big Bang. The Big Bang isn't an explosion in space. If it were, we could point to a place in the sky and say "hey, that's the center of the universe!" We cannot.

The Big Bang is the beginning of all space and time. Asking what happened before the Big Bang is like asking what's north of the North Pole.

Your argument about conscience is naive. There is plenty of scientific evidence that conscience is a psychological phenomena. Here's a link I found within 10 seconds of typing "conscience psychological" into Google:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2004/pr041027.cfm

Clearly, conscience is, surprise surprise, a naturalistic phenomenon. Some people don't have a conscience for biological or psychological reasons.

Religionists are always so eager to declare that there cannot possibly be any scientific explanation for as-yet unexplained phenomena. Fortunately, over the centuries, thousands of brave scientists resisted religion's explanation ("god did it!") (often on pain of death or imprisonment), and gave us medicine, biology, electricity, psychology, geology, chemistry and all of the other important knowledge we use every day.

My apologies.

"2nd law of thermodynamics" should have been "the law of conservation of mass."

The 2nd law of thermodynamics applies to your Big Bang theory though. In a closed system (the universe) entropy always in creases and yet somehow the universe is a very organized place.
It's like there must be a God that put everything in order.

Concerning your statement that matter IS created and destroyed every day, how can that be if you have a LAW (always true in every experiment) that says otherwise?

Concerning conscience, it's great that you can see it develop, however, where did it come from? Does it just appear?

Some people do not have a conscience because they have ignored it for their whole lives and it no longer bothers them.

I'm also not against scientific study and nothing I said even suggested that I was. I enjoy finding out how God made things work. When people say that things work therefore God didn't make them, that is pure foolishness. The Bible plainly agrees. Psalm 14:1 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."

Regards,

a WELS member

Well DL,
Getting a little testy I see.

I thought that a short lesson in the origin of the words that you claim may give you a little perspective on it. One of the problems that you seem to have is constently changing definitions to suite you at the moment. That's pragmatism for you. It's like nailing jello to a tree.

If I calculate pi (3.1415926...), the answer comes out the same whether your god exists or not.

It's a little funny that you're back to the old empirical method again. I thought that we'd put that to bed. How do you know? If you can't be certain of consistency just hope for it, then how can you account for the consistent outcome. You would have to witness every calcuation of pi past present and future to make an absolute statement. My Christian worldview assures me of consistency.

You're falling apart on me here DL. Calm down.

The reason you are having so much trouble addressing the question is that you are out of your zone of comfort here. You want to argue in your preset fashion of evidentialism. I have presented in another way that you cannot positively address because it would blow your carefully crafted cover. God does that to people. He strips you down and lays you bare.

You've been all over the place with your argument. You've even argued with yourself. It has been "nonsensical".

Early on I gave you the Christian answer to the existence of God. You just didn't like the answer.

Now you're mad and want to take your toys and go home. Come on. you can do better than that.

I'm sure that if you want to debate the evidential existence of God, tim and WELS will be glad to do that. But that's not our debate. Our debate is the existence of God using pre-suppositional methods. I know you know what that is. I've read your website. I even let you set the formula for proof.

I have asked you to dig deeper than the evidence. You can't or won't.

You seem really proud of your Blackjack analogy, so let give this on a try. Maybe it will get you back in "the game of life".

Okay, you go to Honest Joe's Casino to play Blackjack. First question...who is Joe?

WELS,
No problem. Chime in at anytime.

DL,

Here's another one to try since you're having trouble with the question at hand.

What is Love?

WELS,
PS..you can go to the induction principle section of this webblog to July 22 and see some other exchanges between DL and me.

Buffy,

thanks.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics applies to your Big Bang theory though. In a closed system (the universe) entropy always in creases and yet somehow the universe is a very organized place. It's like there must be a God that put everything in order.

There is order in life on Earth, but Earth is not a closed system. It receives energy from the Sun, and the solar system as a whole becomes less ordered with time. The law doesn't say that every locale must become more disordered, only that the total amount of disorder in the universe should increase as long as the arrow of time advances forward. For example, crystals that form on freezing are perfectly consistent with the laws of thermodynamics, yet they are highly ordered.

There is no thermodynamic problem with the universe. If there were, it would be a big deal in the scientific community. For a time, it was thought that black holes might violate the laws of thermodynamics, but Hawking showed that black holes radiate in a way that makes them thermodynamically balanced. That's why the man is famous.

Concerning your statement that matter IS created and destroyed every day, how can that be if you have a LAW (always true in every experiment) that says otherwise?

Because the law of conservation of mass is a law of chemistry (low energy electromagnetic interactions), not of physics.

Concerning conscience, it's great that you can see it develop, however, where did it come from? Does it just appear?

Actually, it is an evolved trait.

Buffy is right about one thing. It is futile to argue for your religion based on empirical facts. Science has continually explained phenomena that were previously thought to be the work of god. Christians keep moving the goalposts further and further back, but after we explain cognition and build artificial intelligences, there will be very little left to this tiresome game. You are fighting a losing battle.

I'm also not against scientific study and nothing I said even suggested that I was. I enjoy finding out how God made things work.

As long as we don't actually use genetic engineering, build AI, cure diseases with stem cells or apply therapeutics that allow people to have healthy, effectively-infinite lifespans. This would be usurping god's power.

When people say that things work therefore God didn't make them, that is pure foolishness. The Bible plainly agrees. Psalm 14:1 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."

No, quoting a fairy tale as an authority on everything is pure foolishness.

Once upon a time there were three bears who created and controlled the universe. The Mama Bear said "there will be people who deny the bear explanation of creation, and they are fools!" Papa Bear said "the universe is absolutely consistent, so you don't have to just assume it is, even though it really won't make any difference to the way you live your life." Finally, all three bears said that the only permissable food is porridge. Those who eat non-porridge foodstuffs will be tortured forever!

doctorlogic:

You do not seem up-to-date with the current Big Bang theory.
I have re-researched it and every place I look says that the Big Bang is, in fact, an explosion. Also, the sites I looked at all say that we just don't know what there was before the Big Bang. None of them say the Big Bang is the beginning of everything, like you say.
Also, physicists, astrophysiscists, and other scientists are in fact trying to calculate where the Big Bang took place, and claim to have everything except for the first twelve seconds or so.

Since this discussion is not about the flaws in the Big Bang theory, I will end with that. If you would like to try arguing the Big Bang theory, let me know and I'm sure we can start a different blog or communicate through e-mail to allow this particular blog to stay on topic.

Regards,

A WELS member

"Science has continually explained phenomena that were previously thought to be the work of god."

Just because science can explain how something is done doesn't mean God didn't make things work that way. You shouldn't confuse an explanation for the creator.

For example, if I build a robot, and then you come along and study it and figure out HOW it works, does that mean I didn't build it?

"As long as we don't actually use genetic engineering, build AI, cure diseases with stem cells or apply therapeutics that allow people to have healthy, effectively-infinite lifespans. This would be usurping god's power."

Nobody can usurp God's power, so that is not a concern of mine. Trying to would be pointless though. My concern with stem cells is that you are killing people in order to give other people a better life. Any of the other things you mentioned, providing they don't go against scripture, are no problem.

Regards,

A WELS member

Not that this matters much, but Keith, the time on this system is wrong.

Currently it is 2:04 pm here in EST, although the website will say it is only 1:04 pm.

Doctorlogic:

an extension of the robot metaphor:

I build a robot. You and the robot are on a desert island together. NObody else is there and you cannot communicate with anyone. I left you a message that says I created the robot and that I am watching you via satellite all of the time.

You cannot do any test to see whether or not I actually exist, howver, I most certainly do exist.

Even logically you should be able to figure out that I do exist because you sure didn't build the robot and nobody else is around to claim it.

Do you understand this?

Regards,

A WELS member

WELS,
You'll find more inconsistencies and mis-information in other responses from DL. For instance here is one of his more blatant un-educated remarks: July 18 DL wrote

1) The Bible isn't self-consistent. For any given action you can probably find one verse in the Bible that tells you to take the actions, and another verse that says otherwise. I would turn the other cheek, but I'm supposed to take an eye for an eye.

2) There are thousands of religious texts, some older than your scriptures. Others have the same pedigree, but for various reasons never made it into the final edit of the Torah or the New Testament. So why are your texts the only valid ones, and all the rest of the worlds religious books false? Certainly, you don't have adequate grounds for ignoring history: there are known cases in which people have written religious texts free from inspiration from supernatural entities. The Book of Mormon and Dianetics come to mind.

His ignorance of literary history, textual analysis, archeological findings etc is quite breath taking.
You may also want to follow tim's posts. He reduced DL to absurdity in other earlier posts.

Buffy,

I agree that doctorlogic is low on biblical knowledge, although I wouldn't expect an atheist to read the Bible at all, so I'm not surprised.

YOu seem fairly fed up with doctorlogic, which is understandable considering he won't listen, although I'm sure doctorlogic is fed up to some to degree with the rest of us who don't see things the way he does, plus, he is losing the debate, which adds to the frustration.

Anyway, I just want to say that antagonizing doctorlogic is probably not the best way to get him to change his thinking, no matter how much fun it may be to critisize his viewpoints.
I am also guilty of saying some things to him in a less-than-civil way or at least with a less-than-civil intent. Especially when he does the same, but oh well.

This is not to say you aren't doing a good job of offering more proofs.

WELS,
Thanks for the reproof. But one quick note. It's not up to me to change his way of thinking. As believers we are called to defend our faith with boldness. Perhaps I am overly bold. That's part of my humanity. Still working on it so to speak. The rest is up to God.

good point buffy

DL,
Haven't heard from you since yesterday. I'm still waiting for you to tell me who Joe is?

DL,
Last Chance before I post my summary. Sure you don't want to try one more time?
Anyone else want to get in on this debate before I post my summary?

I have nothing more to say unless doctorlogic responds.

Have at it Buffy.

Regards,
a WELS member

Thanks WELS. Since I haven't heard from Sam philosophy hurts my head Douglas, tim, or Keith I'm assuming that I can go ahead and post my summary. Since I'm swamped today with work I will have to post tomorrow. Til then.

Cheers

B

1 Cor 1:20 "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?"

Looks like Elvis has left the building. Since Doctor Logic has departed from the field without answering the Question I am assuming that he cannot. If he returns, I will be glad to continue. Otherwise I welcome anyone else who has been following the exchange is free to ask questions about the Question. Since DL gave his summary before he left the field I want to offer mine.
We began the debate with DL challenging me to prove the existence of “god” without using the Bible as my authority. My stated intent was to argue the existence of the Holy God of the Bible by proving the contrary. My method was the pre-suppositional method on the transcendental argument for the existence of God. I agreed not to use the Bible as authority. Interestingly, DL mentioned the Bible constantly in his comments at which I had to remind him that he was the one pointing at Scripture. The underlying question within the debate was that of the Christian Worldview versus the atheistic worldview.

DL began with pointing out that there was no way to prove God exists because there was no experiment (material sense-data) that could be presented to him to do so (atheistic worldview). My reply was he could not even make such a statement since he could not witness all past, present or future experiments and their outcomes and their consistent outcomes (Christian Worldview). My example of his fallacious reasoning was to challenge him with abstracts such as the existence of the laws of logic or moral absolutes. DL could never make the adjustment to defend his position.

Secondly DL challenged me with the malicious actions of Christians as proof that my God could not exist. In debate it is called an ad hominen attack. He was arguing against the creation and not the Creator. The actions of people do not invalidate the existence of God. It is a line of reasoning known as the “Genetic Fallacy” (see Induction thread on this blog for my response to DL on this).

DL was trapped by his own inability to provide a coherent argument to the atheistic worldview that would not pre-suppose the existence of God. His pragmatic approach was entertaining but not fruitful for the debate. That is because atheism does not provide the pre-condition for making human experience intelligible. It leaves science logic and ethics to be arbitrary and/or incoherent. Atheism under-minds rationality and morality and makes it philosophically incoherent. It profoundly refutes itself as witnessed by DL’s inconsistent stances. Atheism cannot even attempt to answer the deeper philosophical questions such as unpredictability, choice making, and universal moral absolutes because they are immaterial (atomistic) and in an atheistic worldview only “sense-data” is coherent (thank you Bertrand Russell). In order to account for these an atheist has to borrow from the Christian Worldview. Even well-known atheists are admitting to their anti God philosophical biases thus losing the public debate. Consider the words of Darwinist Richard Lewontin of Harvard. "Our willingness," confessed Lewontin, "to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to understanding the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for the unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. . materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door."

DL could never bring himself to admit that. Atheism is therefore reduced to self-refutation, subjectivism, skepticism and as Wittgenstein wrote “when one can’t speak thereof, one must be silent.” Even Neitze, the Big Daddy of atheism, stated “ We have not banished God because we are still subject to grammar (universals)”. All God’s creation have an innate knowledge of God but suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:19-20). God has made Himself known through the created order and all are without excuse. As I stated to DL, the Christian Worldview gives as proof of God’s existence in that without Him you cannot prove anything. He just did not like the answer.

A coherent worldview must examine 4 things.
1. What are the ultimate principles that render experiences intelligible.
2. How should we understand nature
3. What is man’s place and function in the universe
4. Is man’s mind self sufficient (rationality vs. emotionality)
The atheistic worldview fails miserably on the answers. It reduces it's proponents to absurdity (reductu ad absurdum). The only hope for man is in the Christian Worldview. Prov 1:7 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction."

Socrates wrote “ and unexamined life is not worth living.” I asked DL repeatedly to examine his inconsistent pre-supposistions with simple questions and queries but to no avail. Rom 1: 21 "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." DL lost the debate before he even began.

Praise to God and His Son, Jesus Christ, my redeemer.
2 Cor 10:5 "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Amen.

Well done Buffy!

Excellent summation.

Amen and amen.

DL began with pointing out that there was no way to prove God exists because there was no experiment (material sense-data) that could be presented to him to do so (atheistic worldview). My reply was he could not even make such a statement since he could not witness all past, present or future experiments and their outcomes and their consistent outcomes (Christian Worldview).

You still don't understand my argument. My point is that it is in fact your claim that no experiment can disprove that god exists (or is good, or is made of cotton wool, or whatever). So what are the predictions of your theory? Your predictions are that the world will appear just the same way as if god didn't exist. And thus, it's not really a theory at all, just mumbo jumbo.

We can dream up a million similar mumbo jumboes. Say that Fred proposes that the Great Pink Penguin (GPP) created the universe, and by definition of the GPP, the GPP cannot be detected or understood by science. Then Kate arrives and claims that the GPP doesn't exist, and that, not surprisingly, the scientific evidence will be indistinguishable if her theory is true. Which one of them has the better claim to truth? If you said neither none of them, you would be correct! Why? Because neither proposition has anything to do with experience of any kind. Neither one makes a prediction, and both are perfectly consistent with all the evidence.

You remember back in algebra class getting problems like X = Y + 2, and Y = 1. You work out that X = 3. In your next homework problem you are given X = 7 - Y and Y = 1. You work out that X = 6. So which is it? Is X = 3 or X = 6? In each case, X is defined arbitrarily just in the context of the math problem. We cannot say that X definitively has the value 3 until we make X correlate with some empirical parameter, e.g., pi or the speed of light.

When I calculate the energy equivalent of rest mass (are you listening a WELS member?), I use the formulat E = mc^2. This equation isn't just another homework problem because I can correlate it with energy, mass and the speed of light. I can split a Uranium 235 atom and the difference between the atom and its fission fragments equals the released energy in radiation.

So your proposition that "god exists" is just like X = 1. Someone else can claim X = 0, and they have another equally valid math puzzle.

In order to claim that your X is meaningful, you have to say what it corresponds to. What math calculation or experiment I can do that will turn out differently because X is true. You have failed to do this.

That is because atheism does not provide the pre-condition for making human experience intelligible. It leaves science logic and ethics to be arbitrary and/or incoherent. Atheism under-minds rationality and morality and makes it philosophically incoherent.

This statement is very revealing. Your definition of intelligibility is fixed morality and ethics. Because atheism has no intrinsic moral code, you find it nonsensical. However, you confuse philosophical necessity with human desire. The two are not connected. Atheists do good because they aspire to be good. They like being good. The universe may not care if we're good to each other, but atheists do care.

You didn't produce any arguments based on the consistency of logic because that was never your objective. Instead, you repeated the claim over and over again without argument. What you and your allies have to understand is that our intuition, our gut sense of meaning, our personal feeling of right and wrong are inadequate in philosophy. Whether we feel something is true or not has no bearing on its truth. People used to think the world was obviously flat. It was common sense. They felt it with "every fiber of the being," but they were wrong. People used to feel that non-whites were genetic inferiors. It must have seemed so obvious that people who still lived as hunter-gatherers were less than human. Again, they were utterly wrong. Only science, reason and self-examination can get you to the right answer.

Atheism cannot even attempt to answer the deeper philosophical questions such as unpredictability, choice making, and universal moral absolutes because they are immaterial (atomistic) and in an atheistic worldview only “sense-data” is coherent (thank you Bertrand Russell).

Just making my last point for me again. The "deeper questions" you ask are meaningless from a philosophical perspective. Any question that is neither scientific nor mathematical is philosophically meaningless.

as Wittgenstein wrote “when one can’t speak thereof, one must be silent.”

ROTFL! He was talking about you metaphysicians!

The rest of your post was right out of an Indiana Jones movie.

I have read Keith's top two links to Van Til and Greg Bahnsen. You clearly have the condescending style of Van Til, and about as little content. Bahnsen's paper was a much more interesting read, and actually had some arguments within it.

Unfortunately, Bahnsen doesn't know what science is either. Like the creationists, he points to disagreements among scientists and mathematicians as evidence for the fragility of their trade. However, this is intellectually dishonest. The theory of evolution is as solid as a rock. Evolutionary biologists are looking at problems that reveal the inner workings of Nature, and these puzzles do not by any stretch of the imagination invalidate evolution itself. Similarly, mathematicians disagree on which axioms are appropriate in certain algebras, but they totally agree on the methods of computation given the axioms.

The key property of a science is that there is a rigorous method for computing predictions and measuring results. Further, scientists agree that method and evidence can settle scientific questions. Religion and biblical interpretation do not have this property. No amount of reading and reason is going to make Christians agree on a single interpretation (like Einstein convinced skeptical physicists of his Special Theory). No study of the natural world is going to lead to a validation of god because it cannot do so by the very definition of god as being beyond nature and evidence. Religion is not a science because there isn't any procedure (short of obfuscation and coercion) for establishing consensus on the meaning of anything. A bunch of people who agree to interpret the Bible in a particular way, doesn't constitute a scientific consensus. You should care about this because it is a recipe for mass delusion (no matter which party you think is deluded).

You argue from emotion because you want the world to be a certain, human-centric thing. But that's not good enough in philosophical debate.

I had hoped that your claim about god ensuring logical consistency was going to go somewhere, but it hasn't. If you want to make this claim, you have to say how god ensures this, and how your assumption of god is different from the simple assumption of consistency. Otherwise, god is just a synonym for logical consistency, and I'm sure that's not what your heart tells you.

You do not seem up-to-date with the current Big Bang theory. I have re-researched it and every place I look says that the Big Bang is, in fact, an explosion. Also, the sites I looked at all say that we just don't know what there was before the Big Bang. None of them say the Big Bang is the beginning of everything, like you say. Also, physicists, astrophysiscists, and other scientists are in fact trying to calculate where the Big Bang took place, and claim to have everything except for the first twelve seconds or so.

Your statements about the Big Bang reveal that you understand nothing about it.

I didn't say it wasn't an explosion, I said it wasn't an explosion "in space."

I quote Wikipedia:

As the universe can be described by such coordinates, the Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe; what is expanding is spacetime itself. It is this expansion that causes the physical distance between any two fixed points in our universe to increase.

All the galaxies are receding from us. The naive conclusion is that we are at the center of the expanding universe. Yay for us!

Fortunately, scientists aren't naive. Imagine painting dots on a balloon. As you blow up the balloon, each dot sees its neighbors receding. Now where is the center of the surface expansion? There isn't one.

Now realize that the radial axis of the balloon represents time, while its surface dimensions represent space. You cannot speak of what happened before the expansion because that would refer to negative radius which is nonsensical.

I build a robot. You and the robot are on a desert island together. NObody else is there and you cannot communicate with anyone. I left you a message that says I created the robot and that I am watching you via satellite all of the time. You cannot do any test to see whether or not I actually exist, howver, I most certainly do exist.

Your robot analogy is quite helpful in making my point.

The reason why the robot scheme is meaningful is that I can in principle build a rocket, a telescope, a proton beam and test your claim. I may not have the materials, but I could do it if I wanted to expend the resources. When you tell me what a satellite is, you're telling me precisely how to see it on radar, shoot it down with a particle beam or capture it with a space shuttle.

Not so for your god. You specifically claim that no experiment will falsify its existence, not even in principle, not even with the biggest science budget. Instead, you claim that "we will see the world exactly as we see the world."

The part you left out is that everyone on the island appears to be the same kind of robot. There are also thousands of notes from would-be gods claiming that we are all model X5 robots, or all R2 units or all Cybermen or whatever. Which note should I believe? None of course. We robots fake these sorts of notes all the time.

Then we islanders learn that the laws of physics can naturally lead to the self-assembly and evolution of robots. Now why should I believe the notes again?

Okay, you go to Honest Joe's Casino to play Blackjack. First question...who is Joe?

I devise this beautiful analogy to explain why the assumption of consistency is warranted, and this is your first question?

That's like asking what color the carpet is on the casino floor.

It doesn't matter to the analogy. Maybe Joe is actually Joseph Stalin who has devised the casino as a twisted experiment on human guinea pigs. Or maybe Joe is the devil. Or Joseph of Arimathea. Or maybe there is no Joe, and it's just a branding scheme.

The analogy demonstrates game theory in an environment where the rules have been, but are not always guaranteed to be fixed. Your question is irrelevant, not clever.

He's back! No time right now to respond but I look forward to the exchange DL.

doctorlogic, you've been busy I can see.

This message in reply to your comments on my robot analogy.
First of all, you cannot change my analogy to fit your view of the universe, you must look at my analogy the way I put it forth.

The reason why the robot scheme is meaningful is that I can in principle build a rocket, a telescope, a proton beam and test your claim. I may not have the materials, but I could do it if I wanted to expend the resources. When you tell me what a satellite is, you're telling me precisely how to see it on radar, shoot it down with a particle beam or capture it with a space shuttle.

I will say again that you are not taking my analogy correctly. The reason you are on an island alone and cannot communicate with anyone is so that you cannot test whether I am real or not, you just have to believe. Also, you are yourself, not a robot.
With that in mind, I will respond to your mutations of my analogy.

"The part you left out is that everyone on the island appears to be the same kind of robot. There are also thousands of notes from would-be gods claiming that we are all model X5 robots, or all R2 units or all Cybermen or whatever. Which note should I believe? None of course. We robots fake these sorts of notes all the time."

Looking at the underlined portion, why shouldn't you beleive my note? It is the only true one in this scenerio. How can you say that none are worthy of being beleived?

Then we islanders learn that the laws of physics can naturally lead to the self-assembly and evolution of robots. Now why should I believe the notes again?

The point is, my note is true, why wouldn't you believe it?

doctorlogic, you said:

Your statements about the Big Bang reveal that you understand nothing about it.
I didn't say it wasn't an explosion, I said it wasn't an explosion "in space."
I quote Wikipedia:
As the universe can be described by such coordinates, the Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe; what is expanding is spacetime itself. It is this expansion that causes the physical distance between any two fixed points in our universe to increase.
All the galaxies are receding from us. The naive conclusion is that we are at the center of the expanding universe. Yay for us!
Fortunately, scientists aren't naive. Imagine painting dots on a balloon. As you blow up the balloon, each dot sees its neighbors receding. Now where is the center of the surface expansion? There isn't one.
Now realize that the radial axis of the balloon represents time, while its surface dimensions represent space. You cannot speak of what happened before the expansion because that would refer to negative radius which is nonsensical.

and also:

The theory of evolution is as solid as a rock.

The following are links to documents written by college and seminary professors in the WELS that explain why evolution is not even a possible explanation for how the world came to be.

http://www.wls.wels.net/library/Essays/A...b/BeckerEvolution/BeckerEvolution.htm

http://www.wls.wels.net/library/Essays/A...S/SponholzScience/SponholzScience.htm

http://www.wls.wels.net/library/Essays/A...endorfTeaching/WestendorfTeaching.htm

I suggest the third one; it is only 8 pages long and shouldn't be too much trouble even if you are busy. It is not written for the atheist, but it talks about the issue and evolution in general.

Regards,

a WELS member

a WELS member:

The following are links to documents written by college and seminary professors in the WELS that explain why evolution is not even a possible explanation for how the world came to be.

But their entire argument is that, if the Big Bang and evolution were true, then the literal interpretation of the Bible would be false.

Sorry, but that's not an argument. It's blind devotion to a book that was written by Iron Age people.

Take this quote for an example:

Thus science is a limited body of knowledge, not expanding from one age to the next, only becoming different at each stage of revolution.

Westendorf is an ignoramus. Each successive scientific theory encompasses the last one. It produces all the correct results of prior theories while expanding the contexts in which we can compute predictions. Einstein's Special Relativity (SR) doesn't invalidate the work of Newton. We still use Newton to build bridges and automobiles. SR would produce even more precise results but the precision would be overkill in day-to-day engineering. However, Newtonian mechanics breaks down once we get to speeds comparable with the speed of light. There, SR is required for any kind of precision. So SR covers the entire domain of Newtonian mechanics plus new domains.

To say science is not expanding our knowledge is to have one's head in the sand.

I will say again that you are not taking my analogy correctly. The reason you are on an island alone and cannot communicate with anyone is so that you cannot test whether I am real or not, you just have to believe.

You incorrectly cast your story as an analogy for faith in god. It is not.

There's a difference between a naturalistic system and a supernaturalistic one. In a naturalistic system, it is meaningful to speculate about things that are extremely difficult to observe. For example, suppose we are all virtual characters in a simulation. Suppose that an alien being created the simulation and can prevent us from getting out of the simulation. As simulated entities, we cannot detect whether such an alien exists. However, the reason that this scenario is intelligible is that we are proposing fixed natural laws that apply outside the simulation which make a simulation identifiable as such. We are describing a natural world that might exist. Your island scenario is a variation of this. It makes sense because we understand what a satellite is and what a robot is. We can understand the idea because we can devise experiments that would work if we also were in orbit.

However, this isn't the same as the argument for god. In the god scenario, you are not making any claims about potential experiences. You are claiming explicitly and in principle that nothing we see will ever be any different whether your proposition is true or false. One cannot be an observer outside the naturalistic universe because non-naturalistic affairs are intrinsically nonsensical. Non-naturalistic systems are acausal and inconsistent. Otherwise they would be naturalistic and accessible to science!

If your claim is a naturalistic one, then it is just outlandish, like Bigfoot or UFO abduction. If it is supernatural, then it's not a claim about experience, so it is an isolated axiom no more valid than the negation of the claim.

Furthermore, even if your claims about god were naturalistic, they are not unique. There are an infinite number of possible stories about gods you can cook up. Why should I believe any of them when none of them have any evidence to back them up?

doctorlogic,

You are very stubborn. Buffy has proven that God exists without using the Bible, but Buffy's answer is not good enough for you. Also, no matter what anyone says, all you do is say that what they are saying isn't correct or is misapplied.

You are indeed a very frustrating person to talk with. One thing you are fond of saying is that religious people "will see the world exactly the way they see the world" regardless of the logic you give them why God cannot exist. However, based on your stubborness, it is clear that you are actually describing yourself with that statement. You will continue to see the world exactly the way you see it. Even if God is proven to exist.

I will answer your last question, why you should believe in God.

You should believe in God because he sent his Son to save you from your sins.

I know that you will say there is no proof that Jesus lived, but an intelligent person like you could find the proof if you wanted to.

Regards,

A WELS member

Hello All,
I'm still here. I've been out of town and have not had time to get back to the posts. But have no fear. I will get to it in the next couple of days. I know that DL is anxious to jump back into the fray. WELS, don't despair. Buffy is on the way.

WELS,
One last comment before I run. Just remember, DL lost the debate before he began. The rest is just polemics.

DL,
Before we start, it would be good if you remember that I am defending the existence of the Christian God of the Bible and you are defending atheism. Can you stay on trak with that?

DL,
What a target rich reply you have given me. My profound thanks.
First lesson:
Now to review..

A coherent worldview must examine 4 things.
1. What are the ultimate principles that render experiences intelligible.
2. How should we understand nature
3. What is man’s place and function in the universe
4. Is man’s mind self sufficient (rationality vs. emotionality)

I'm going to assume that you understood the above (since no one can be that dense).

However, you confuse philosophical necessity with human desire. The two are not connected. Atheists do good because they aspire to be good. They like being good. The universe may not care if we're good to each other, but atheists do care.

Short List of Caring Atheists:
1. Stalin
2. Hitler
3. Robespierre
4. Attilla the Hun
5. Genghis Kahn
6. Pol Pot
7. Mao Tse Tung
8. Rousseau
9. Karl Marx
10. Larry Flint (my personal favorite)

Or maybe not.
But let's give it a try, shall we?

1. What are the ultimate principles that render experiences intelligible.

You like definitions, DL...let's flesh this out.

Ultimate - "Incapable of further analysis; incapable of further division or separation; constituent; elemental; as, an ultimate constituent of matter."

Principle - " fundamental, primary, or general truth, on which other truths depend.' Thus a principle is an abstraction which subsumes a great number of concretes." ( or I particularly like this one ) principle - "is the absolute, universal, unchangeable, undeviating immutable foundation upon which all universes are based and established. Principle is the absolute framework of the universe.

Render - "cause to become"

Experiences - "Experience is knowledge of and skill in something gained through being involved in or exposed to it over a period of time. It generally refers to know-how or procedural knowledge, rather than propositional knowledge. Knowledge based on experience is also known as empirical knowledge or a posteriori knowledge. A person with considerable experience in a certain field is called an expert. " (from your fav - wikipedia)

Intelligible - " the quality of language that is comprehensible"

So what are we to glean from this, DL? Do I need to spell it out? Why we could live off this one for a long time don't you think. Rather a priori isn't it.

absolute, universal, unchangeable, undeviating immutable foundation upon which all universes are based .....
Your (Athetist) worldview:

I don't have to be sure, so I don't have to witness all empirical evidence. This is really a straw man. Personally, I can accept that tomorrow there could be no laws of physics whatsoever. I'm just not betting on it.

Christian Worldview:
Phil 4:13 - I can do (prevail) all things through Christ which strenghten me.
ALL THINGS - isn't that interesting. Remember Isaiah 45:7 - I the Lord do ALL things.

As I have pointed out before, you are borrowing from my worldview. I don't mind. In fact, I don't even care if you can't admit it. But perhaps you should be asking yourself why you can seem to comprehend this very simple point. Since you pride yourself on your intellect, it seems "non-sensical" that you can't understand even the simplest of concepts. God is very clear about why your reasoning is corrupt in Rom 8:22. You should read it for the answer.

Oh, I couldn't let this one get by...

Whether we feel something is true or not has no bearing on its truth....Only science, reason and self-examination can get you to the right answer.....The theory of evolution is as solid as a rock.

Here's one of your "all scientists are atheists" members, Robert A. Herrmman, PHd. Mathematics Department, US Naval Academy...."Mathematical Philosophy and Evolution" 1982.
Or how about this one:
Darwins Black Box. Michael Behe... Happy Reading.

I love this quote:
"Any suppression which undermines and destroys that very foundation on which scientific methodology and research was erected, evolutionist or otherwise, cannot and must not be allowed to flourish ... It is a confrontation between scientific objectivity and ingrained prejudice - between logic and emotion - between fact and fiction ... In the final analysis, objective scientific logic has to prevail - no matter what the final result is - no matter how many time-honoured idols have to be discarded in the process ... After all, it is not the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution and stick by it to the bitter end -no matter what illogical and unsupported conclusions it offers ... If in the process of impartial scientific logic, they find that creation by outside intelligence is the solution to our quandary, then Lets cut the umbilical chord that tied us down to Darwin for such a long time. It is choking us and holding us back ... Every single concept advanced by the theory of evolution (and amended thereafter) is imaginary as it is not supported by the scientifically established probability concepts. Darwin was wrong... The theory of evolution may be the worst mistake made in science."

I L Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities PO Box 231, Greenvale, New York 11548: New Research Publications, Inc. pp 6-8, 209-210, 214-215. I.L.Cohen, Member of the New York Academy of Sciences and Officer of the Archaeological Institute of America.

And this one:
"I think we need to go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know this is an anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it."

H. S. Lipson; Prof of Physics, University of Manchester, A paper published by The Institute of Physics, IOP Publishing Ltd., 1980

And the hits just keep on coming:
'We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain. I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it's good, we know it is bad, but because there isn't any other. Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation. . .'

Professor Jerome Lejeune: From a French recording of internationally recognized geneticist, Professor Jerome Lejeune, at a lecture given in Paris on March 17, 1985. Translated by Peter Wilders of Monaco.

Or perhaps you want to peruse www.discovery,org with the 40 some academically credentialed members.

Better yet, you noted Greg Bahnsen...read his [Are Science and Logic Objective, Neutral, and Invariant?] (1979)..particularly Science, Subjectivity and Scripture.

That should keep you busy for a while. My Saturday is drifting away so I'm off for a while.

One more I forgot that you may like is:

Greg Bahnsen...2Journal of Christian Reconstruction -- 800/553-3938. I:1 (Summer, 1974) "On Worshipping the Creature Rather Than the Creator"

Toodles,

B

Buffy,

So your long-awaited response consists of:

1) Your personal definition of a coherent worldview.

2) A ridiculous slur against atheists.

3) Some more quotes from the Bible (yawn).

4) A repetition of the unsubstantiated accusation that I am borrowing from your worldview. Why do you consistently refuse to say in what way I am "borrowing"?

5) Quotations from a few pretend scientists and theologians who stupidly disbelieve the empirical facts endorsed by the vast majority of scientists.

Not only do you not appear to have any case, but if you do have a case, you seem to be incapable of making it. I expect your "proof" of the Pythagorean Theorem would look like this:

Pythagoras wrote that "the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides." And Albert Einstein believed in the Pythagorean Theorem, too.

Well, that's not an argument, it's a quotation by a famous person claiming that the statement to be proved is true. You need a logical chain of steps in a proof, and you never present one.

I thought you were going to try to prove the existence of god. Instead, you go and define your personal definition of a coherent worldview. It's not relevant to the actual question, but let's explore this tangent. I think it will expose the errors in your thinking.

Here's how atheism is coherent by your definition:

1. What are the ultimate principles that render experiences intelligible.

Self-consistency, and the fact that there exist laws of nature. Human minds are pattern matching machines that learn to see the patterns in a structured universe.

2. How should we understand nature

Science.

3. What is man’s place and function in the universe

Man evolved by chance on Earth. Earth may be one of many civilizations in the universe. By function, I assume you mean purpose. The only evolved purpose in our lives is survival. Any other purpose is either accidental or of our own choosing.

4. Is man’s mind self sufficient (rationality vs. emotionality)

This one is a little vague. Self-sufficient for what? Survival? In my opinion, our present mental capacity is too small to enable humanity to survive more than another 100 years. We will kill ourselves with our own technology. Fortunately, we will augment our intelligence and wisdom using artificial means. If we survive, it is because we will develop technologies that limit the impact of negative emotion on the physical world, and develop systems that are robust against human emotional misuse. There are no guarantees.

None of these questions has anything to do with proving the existence, the non-existence, or the sensibility of existence of god. These questions are about your motivation for wanting to believe in god. You don't like the naturalistic answers to these questions, so you postulate that god must exist. In essence, you don't think that life would be worth living if god didn't exist. So it makes personal sense for you to believe, because from your perspective, you have nothing to lose, even if you're wrong.

Unfortunately, this kind of thinking de-values human lives. It emphasizes a fantasy afterlife instead of our one and only material life. People suffer in the real world while the religious charade can continue. Religion is a form of immaturity, a refusal to accept reality. It's Santa Claus for adults. It's astounding that religion is still held on such a pedestal in this culture.

It's time to face the fact that we live in an exclusively materialistic world with nothing but natural laws. If one's life's works are good, they will still be so, even in a naturalistic universe.

doctorlogic:

"Unfortunately, this kind of thinking de-values human lives."

My beliefs: Everyone has a God-given purpose. (Therefore go and make disciples of all nations..." Matt 28:19) They matter. God sent Son to die for them.

Atheism: People have no purpose. They do not matter, they are an accident.

My point: Atheism de-values human life while religion values it. YOu can only come to faith while you are alive. After that, it's heaven or hell.

a WELS member

I need to correct something in my last statement.

I poorly worded "...you can only come to faith..."

For clarity, you can only be brought to faith by the Holy Spirit, you cannot choose to follow God on your own.

A WELS member

"Here's how atheism is coherent by your definition:

1. What are the ultimate principles that render experiences intelligible.

Self-consistency, and the fact that there exist laws of nature. Human minds are pattern matching machines that learn to see the patterns in a structured universe."

As Buffy already pointed out, you have also said:

"I don't have to be sure, so I don't have to witness all empirical evidence. This is really a straw man. Personally, I can accept that tomorrow there could be no laws of physics whatsoever. I'm just not betting on it."

Which is it? Is the universe going to be consistent or not?
Are the laws of nature goign to change on us?
YOu claim that the bible is self-contradictory (it isn't, but that can be discussed later) but what about yourself?

a WELS member

Okay DL,
Obviously you are that dense. Since you refuse to look at the tough questions ( I can't blame you..nobody wants to admit that they are destined for everlasting Hell), I'll back up and see if you can follow. Let's make it simpler for you.

It's time to face the fact that we live in an exclusively materialistic world with nothing but natural laws.

Explain the continuity of your identity through space and time.

PS

In my opinion, our present mental capacity is too small to enable humanity to survive more than another 100 years.

DL, your circular reasoning is just amazing. How do you know? It's just your opinion. Ted Danson made TV spots back in 1990 that said that all life on the earth would perish by the year 2000 because the seas would become devoid of marine life...Gee...Guess he was wrong.

PPS

Religion is a form of immaturity, a refusal to accept reality.

You are in great company here with Mao. Congratulations!

Atheism: People have no purpose. They do not matter, they are an accident.

People don't matter to the universe. People only matter because people think people are important.

In your religion, it doesn't matter what people think, people are not important, period. It doesn't matter what they do, how much they suffer, or how long they live. What's important to you is what supposedly happens after they live.

For clarity, you can only be brought to faith by the Holy Spirit, you cannot choose to follow God on your own.

You're make my point. Why is material life important when we have nothing to do with choosing what happens in the eternal afterlife?

For you, we are toys in your god's hands, and our suffering in this material world is irrelevant to him. Logically, god intends there to be suffering, so we should accept suffering as god's will. Well, let me ask you, would such a god deserve our worship? I think not.

1. What are the ultimate principles that render experiences intelligible. "Self-consistency, and the fact that there exist laws of nature. Human minds are pattern matching machines that learn to see the patterns in a structured universe."

I have described the conditions that render experiences intelligible. Who says that those conditions will persist forever? Experiences always have been intelligible, but they may not be intelligible tomorrow. Just because conditions may change in the future, doesn't mean we should give up the assumption that conditions will stay the same.

The world could be destroyed by a supernova tomorrow. So what? Are you not going to go to work today? Are you going to give up on the enterprise of life because it might end tomorrow? Of course not.

You're worried about whether the universe might become inconsistent and unintelligible? I would worry about supernovas first. They have a historical precedent.

WELS,
Just a quick note. Read Rom 8:22. You will understand DL. DL does not have to agree with our position for us to win the debate. He lost the debate just by showing up (Proof Theory). He is not widely read on any of the scientific literature, philosophical writtings, ect...heck he doen't even understand logical fallacies and his use of them. It's quite embarrassing for him don't you think? As I said before, this is just polemics and has no point except to sharpen our debating skills for better read opponents. Now is the time for us to proclaim.

DL,

Do you attend funerals of friends and family members?

Buffy,

Now you're just throwing out random statements.

Explain the continuity of your identity through space and time.

Science has done that. We are neural networks. What we experience is stored in our brains in the connections between neurons. There's a clearly visible mechanism which allows us to store our experiences and reason from them. Neural networks are used in computing applicatyions all the time. They work.

Are you going to fall back on the claim that, since science hasn't yet explained something to your rquired level of detail, that this justifies belief in the supernatural?

This is foolish. Science isn't going to be able to answer every question tomorrow. We haven't even devised every question yet. However, unlike religion, science actually answers questions! In fact, it answers questions that used to be the domain of the supernatural. Before Ben Franklin made a scientific study of lightning, primitive folk used to let struck houses burn down because they thought it was god's will.

Your approach is the same as the creationists. Your claim is that science cannot explain X, Y, and Z. When science discovers that Y = X^2 (that is Y is implied by X), your cliam is that it can't explain X and Z. After science discovers that Z = X^3 (everything is implied by X), you'll claim that science can't explain X. Well, neither can religion! The universe just is. Deal.

DL does not have to agree with our position for us to win the debate. He lost the debate just by showing up (Proof Theory).

I'm sure this must be very reassuring for you, not to need logic or proof in arguments and all.

I think it's time I just declared victory myself (Science Defeats Superstition Theory).

DL,
So your going to take your toys and go home again? Guess your science can't answer the questions after all.
Please don't go. I need the practice.

DL....

Science has done that. We are neural networks. What we experience is stored in our brains in the connections between neurons. There's a clearly visible mechanism which allows us to store our experiences and reason from them. Neural networks are used in computing applicatyions all the time. They work.

Neural networks don't scale. They are limited by what you put in them. They don't reason. They just regurgitate. And not very well at that. LSI is in the same boat. Can't you give me something better?

This is foolish. Science isn't going to be able to answer every question tomorrow. We haven't even devised every question yet. However, unlike religion, science actually answers questions!

How self-refuting can you get in one paragraph. It's beautiful.

I think it's time I just declared victory myself (Science Defeats Superstition Theory).

I think it's time I declared the Sovreignty of an Omnipotent Holy God over the illogical babblings of a inconsistent, self-refuting, pseudo-intellectual. Although He doesn't need my declaration...Isa: 55:9...I am called to do so.

Hey DL,
I know you're still reading this blog.

Your approach is the same as the creationists. Your claim is that science cannot explain X, Y, and Z. When science discovers that Y = X^2 (that is Y is implied by X), your cliam is that it can't explain X and Z. After science discovers that Z = X^3 (everything is implied by X), you'll claim that science can't explain X.

If you were better read on the subject, you would be embarrassed to make that statement.

Well, neither can religion! The universe just is. Deal.

Since you have been hedging you bets on the consistency of nature, the univeral laws of logic, the order of nature and science's ability to explain the unexplanable, don't you think you should also hedge your bets on finding a way to live your life so that it is acceptable to God? You want to cover all bases don't you? Let's be cdonsistent.

Keith,
Since doctor logics has thrown the towel in, I would like to discuss the problem of evil. Is that permittable?

Sure, though I have yet to read the bulk of the discussion here, despite this being my own site Did you have something particular in mind?

I thought that we could discuss the understanding of evil and what gives us the ability to recogmize evil in it's many forms. Perhaps we could get into the causation and condemnation of evil as well.

Greetings all,

First of all, thanks to Keith for hosting this blog discussion. I'm a bit new to blogs so I'm not up on protocol and hope it's ok that I interject a couple of observations here.

First of all, I should reveal that I'm a brother of Doctor Logic so perhaps that will taint my opinions in one fashion or other. On the other hand, I don't share the same opinions as him on all subjects. I am an agnostic with atheistic leanings (and no, Buffy, an atheist and an agnost are most definitely not the same).

I've read the entire debate in chunks, and though I'm not as well read on the philosophers and scientists as the people here appear to be, I think I have enough background to at least state my opinions (though after seeing some of the responses I get the feeling I'm sticking my head in a clay pigeon release and yelling "PULL!").

I'd like to begin by commenting on the nature of the debaters. Both sides appear to be stating positions with some tact at the start and with a few witty jabs at the opponent. As the debate wore on, both sides also became more insulting to the point where I found it painful to read. After all, I typically find intellectual discussions enjoyable, and the jabs became more viscious as time went on. Both sides became less subtle in their jibes and went straight to derisory statements.

I've taken a few courses on logic, read a wee bit of philosophy, and I'm a math teacher by profession. Doctor Logic's arguments are ones I've seen before and they make the fine point that religious belief systems cannot be proven scientifically, and thus are non-sensical in the scientific sense. Buffy, you're points on the self-sustainment of your beliefs are cogent...but that's the problem. Religion, by nature, must be self-sustaining or it will fall apart before it reaches critical mass of believers. One of the most profound thoughts I heard from a roundtable discussion of religious leaders was that "Proof of the existence of god is denying faith". Therefore arguing with Doctor Logic about proving a deity exists is pointless... it can't be done. If it could, it wouldn't be a "belief".

I have spoken with my brother about his posts and he is not an "inconsistent, self-refuting, pseudo-intellectual" as you stated, but he is occasionally unclear in his posts/comments. In fact, he is incredibly consistent, well-read, and bright. Unfortunately, one of the pitfalls he slips into is trying to make a point too quickly with high-falutin' phrases that can be misinterpreted.

Take the comments as you will.

Regards,
Leon

Good Morning Leon,
First let me state that the problem with DL's statements as well as appears to be yours is that you lump all religions together. I was not debating all religions. My proposition was to debate the existence of the Christian God of the Bible versus the atheistic worldview. DL could never move past his personal opinion of religion (see the induction thread). Our debate was not on opinion, but proof. If you have had courses on logic you will understand proving from the impossibility of the contrary. DL submitted that concept with "if X exists then it can not be that X does not exit".
As to style of debate, people can take offense to someone eating a carrot if they wish. That does not change the fact of the matter. Your brother could not substaniate his position with proof. I have also encountered arguments and demeanors such as DL's before in debates. Once asked to dig deeper, to do the hard lifting so to speak, those arguments fall apart. When you present yourself as "doctor logic" to begin with, you had better understand that your theory of knowledge will be challenged directly and vigorously. Not to belabor the point, but throwing out derogatory remarks about highly respected scholars from world class universities such as Princeton, Yale and Stanford as being ignorant or stupid (see some of DL's earlier posts) from someone who obviously is not well read, well that speaks for itself. It's not that DL was misinterpreted, he just could not support his statements.
If you want to join in the discussion, I welcome it. However, if you are going to just go over the same ground then I don't see the fruit in that unless you can add to the discussion.
If you have something to add to the debate, please be my guest.
Since DL proclaimed his victory and left the playing field, I was moving on the the problem of evil and how a presuppositionalist viewed it.

FYI - I still think that atheists are just agnostics in wolf's clothing.

Interesting.

The first person to proclaim victory was not Doctor Logic, but you, Buff (see post 8103). Either way, that's neither here nor there. His arguments were actualy remarkably cohesive and prove his point much greater than you did yours (and this coming from an agnostic who would love to see a non-atheist succeed in an argument).

You also say there is a problem with lumping all religions together. Christianity is a subset of all religions. Therefore proving that the intersection of all religions and an atheistic worldview is satisfactory for proving that there is no intersection between Christianity and the atheistic worldview.

I believe Doctor Logic's point throughout, and one which you have not acknowledged, is that you cannot prove the existence of the Christian God of the Bible. If it could be done, there would be no other religions and no atheism. Since there cannot exist such proof, the concept is non-sensical in the scientific realm.

Hi Leon,

With the disclaimer that I haven't followed nearly any of the discussion here since I stopped participating, I'd like to butt back in.

Therefore proving that the intersection of all religions and an atheistic worldview is satisfactory for proving that there is no intersection between Christianity and the atheistic worldview.

Not sure what you mean here. First, the sentence structure is throwing me off ("proving that", without a proposition following it), but more importantly, what do you mean by an intersection of worldviews?

...you cannot prove the existence of the Christian God of the Bible. If it could be done, there would be no other religions and no atheism. Since there cannot exist such proof, the concept is non-sensical in the scientific realm.

You're arguing that the existence of a proof entails everybody believing it. That's just not the case. People are not completely rational. Also, I take it you're saying that the type of proof that must be offered for the existence of the Christian God would be scientific proof. Is this what you mean? If not, what do you mean by "the concept is non-sensical in the scientific realm"?

Actually, I declared victory before the debate began.
DL lost the debate just by engaging. (see post 8077)

Leon,,,you said you read all the posts....tell me...what's cohesive about inconsistency?

You also say there is a problem with lumping all religions together. Christianity is a subset of all religions. Therefore proving that the intersection of all religions and an atheistic worldview is satisfactory for proving that there is no intersection between Christianity and the atheistic worldview.

The problem is that we supposedly were debating the existence of the Christian God of the Bible. Now if you want to debate all religions, that's fine by me...but then YOU are presupposing that there is God and we are into comparative religion here, otherwise you could not debate against something you say does not exist.

I particularly like this statement:

Christianity is a subset of all religions.

Please, tell me your not going to stand by that. If you do, you will be, as you posted earlier, setting yourself up like a clay pigeon. Your brother had that same over-generalization habit. It got him into a lot of hot water.

I believe Doctor Logic's point throughout, and one which you have not acknowledged, is that you cannot prove the existence of the Christian God of the Bible.

Actually, Leon, it doesn't matter what you believe. Your beliefs are just mere opinion here. I believe atheism and agnosticism to be based in ignorance and self-indulgence. That is my opionion. Is my belief system anymore valid than yours? The only way to determine is to examine the presuppositions of the two. That is the debate. To examine the Christian Worldview against the atheistic worldview. The Christian worldview presupposes the existence of the Holy God of the Bible. The atheistic worldview presupposes nothing and therefore has to borrow from the Christian worldview in order to make sense. By borrowing from the Christian worldview, you are admitting the existence of God.

If it could be done, there would be no other religions and no atheism. Since there cannot exist such proof, the concept is non-sensical in the scientific realm

How do you know? Have you witnessed everything in the scientific realm? Can you verify that all understanding has been witnessed, is being witnessed, will be witnessed in the future? Your statement is subjective and therefore "nonsensical".

Leon, we are covering old ground here.

Keith wrote:

You're arguing that the existence of a proof entails everybody believing it. That's just not the case. People are not completely rational.

Bingo, Keith. Two thumbs up.

But, let's just take one sentence here that could provide an interesting discussion line.

If it could be done, there would be no other religions and no atheism.

I think that statement could yield a great deal of incite into a good many areas such as pre-destination, foreknowledge, God's Sovereignty and such. I'm up for that.

So tell me Leon...do you want to dig deeper?

Leon,,,you said you read all the posts....tell me...what's cohesive about inconsistency?

Oddly, I didn't see where he was inconsistent. I saw a few places that he was not clear and where you misinterpreted what he said though.

>You also say there is a problem with lumping all religions together. Christianity is a subset of all religions. Therefore proving that the intersection of all religions and an atheistic worldview is satisfactory for proving that there is no intersection between Christianity and the atheistic worldview.

The problem is that we supposedly were debating the existence of the Christian God of the Bible. Now if you want to debate all religions, that's fine by me...but then YOU are presupposing that there is God and we are into comparative religion here, otherwise you could not debate against something you say does not exist.

Why would debating all religions presuppose the existence of a God?

I particularly like this statement:

>Christianity is a subset of all religions.

Yeah, I like it too.

Please, tell me your not going to stand by that. If you do, you will be, as you posted earlier, setting yourself up like a clay pigeon. Your brother had that same over-generalization habit. It got him into a lot of hot water.

Christianity is a religion. There are other religions. Last I checked on set theory, that makes Christianity a subset of the set of all religions.

>I believe Doctor Logic's point throughout, and one which you have not acknowledged, is that you cannot prove the existence of the Christian God of the Bible.

Actually, Leon, it doesn't matter what you believe. Your beliefs are just mere opinion here. I believe atheism and agnosticism to be based in ignorance and self-indulgence. That is my opionion. Is my belief system anymore valid than yours? The only way to determine is to examine the presuppositions of the two. That is the debate. To examine the Christian Worldview against the atheistic worldview. The Christian worldview presupposes the existence of the Holy God of the Bible. The atheistic worldview presupposes nothing and therefore has to borrow from the Christian worldview in order to make sense. By borrowing from the Christian worldview, you are admitting the existence of God.

Perhaps I should rephrase when I say that "I believe that". That's a polite way of saying that "my evidence points to". In other words, remove the words "I believe that" from the statement and you'll see what I really mean't. You are entirely mistaken in believing that the atheistic worldview must borrow from the Christian worldview. On what grounds would you make such a statement? That would mean that atheism did not exist before Christianity. That would mean that atheists cannot grow up in a society where Chrisitianity has not taken hold.

>If it could be done, there would be no other religions and no atheism. Since there cannot exist such proof, the concept is non-sensical in the scientific realm

How do you know? Have you witnessed everything in the scientific realm? Can you verify that all understanding has been witnessed, is being witnessed, will be witnessed in the future? Your statement is subjective and therefore "nonsensical".

What evidence would ever cause you to believe there was no God? No matter what happened, you could always fall back on the phrase "God wants me to be tested in my faith" or some such statement. Thus there could exist no evidence to the contrary of your beliefs. Thus it has no merit in science.

So tell me Leon...do you want to dig deeper?

Sadly, I don't see the point. With your presuppositions being immune to argument (by definition), you did indeed "win" for your belief system doesn't allow you to "lose"...even if you may be wrong. Your belief system is self-sustaining...just as is every other religion.

So I misinterpreted...

Second, the world may not be consistent, in which case, violations of the laws of physics are theoretically permitted. No such violations have ever been observed. DL posts 7986

or

I don't have to be sure, so I don't have to witness all empirical evidence. This is really a straw man. Personally, I can accept that tomorrow there could be no laws of physics whatsoever. I'm just not betting on it. DL posts 7986

In an atheistic worldview, you may consider that as misinterpretation, but in a Christian Worldview it is not. My Christian Worldview depends on the Sovereignty of God to give order to the universe. Yours just hopes for the best. Do you see the inconsistency in that? PS, DL's second statement is just his opinion but it is very telling as to why an atheistic world view has a corrupted thinking process. As a researcher, I would want to know everything possible and what would be considered impossible (intuition) about the subject in order to solve a problem. I would not want to dismiss any possible explanation out of arbitrary conjecture. His statements were just silly in order to try to support his view. And you don't see them as inconsistent. Very interesting.
I'm going to suggest that you go back and read posts 7986 and 7988.

Why would debating all religions presuppose the existence of a God?

As anyone knows in debate, one must understand the concept in order to offer the affirmative or the negative. By offering the negative you are affirming the positive and then countering it. The concept must exist to debate it.

Christianity is a religion. There are other religions. Last I checked on set theory, that makes Christianity a subset of the set of all religions.

Yes, I know your reference about set theory. I'm going to suggest that you read Hislops "Two Babylons" and then make that statement (if you can) again.

You are entirely mistaken in believing that the atheistic worldview must borrow from the Christian worldview. On what grounds would you make such a statement? That would mean that atheism did not exist before Christianity. That would mean that atheists cannot grow up in a society where Chrisitianity has not taken hold.

I make the statements concerning atheistic worldviews from reading your brother's posts (as if there weren't enough on the Net with sites like infidels.org). The atheistic worldview is inconsistent, relativistic, pragmatic, incoherent,arbitrary, un-intelligible, without hope...should I go on?

That would mean that atheism did not exist before Christianity.

Atheisim is a 20th century English word borrow from Greek. A - in Greek means the opposite of or against. Theos- is Greek for the God. I'd say your about statement is correct. So, Leon, how can you be against something that does not exist in your view?

That would mean that atheists cannot grow up in a society where Chrisitianity has not taken hold.

No, that would mean that you (and others of your ilk) are borrowing from the Christian Worldview. You are erroneously making the assumption that Christianity is the invention of the followers of Christ dating from @ 30 AD. I would suggest that you get a few books on Christian theology and read them before you go any further with that line. I would be happy to reccomend some to you.

What evidence would ever cause you to believe there was no God? No matter what happened, you could always fall back on the phrase "God wants me to be tested in my faith" or some such statement. Thus there could exist no evidence to the contrary of your beliefs. Thus it has no merit in science.

Since the Holy God of the Bible, who is without causation, is the pre-condition of intelligibility, then it is impossible to ever submit evidence to the contrary. He is the evidence.
God tests everyone on a multitude of levels. He was gracious enough to chose me without merit and so I know not only where the test comes from but also it is His pleasure and plan to do so. It is through His Grace that He uses these hardships to shape and mold me to the likeness of His Son, Jesus, so that I may become righteous thru Christ when I have to answer for my life.
Once again you are submitting your arbitrary opinion on science. Since God is the pre-condition of scientifc merit, then it is His determination of what is merit and what is not.

Sadly, I don't see the point. With your presuppositions being immune to argument (by definition), you did indeed "win" for your belief system doesn't allow you to "lose"...even if you may be wrong. Your belief system is self-sustaining...just as is every other religion.

Sadly, you don't want to dig deeper. As I stated in my earlier posts, I'm not here to "win" anything. I am here to defend the faith. Whether you believe or not isn't up to me. It's up to the Holy Spirit. What you might want to ask yourself is if the elementary propositions I have submitted are beyond your comprehesion, then why? You're canned response is to always fall back on evidential matters. Yet your evidential system can not explain the very basic concepts of why we are here (purpose), how do we know what we know (transcendental) and using what we know...how do we live our lives (philosophical).

That is why I asked you if you want to dig deeper. DL did not. Do you?

Tim,
Excellent post (once again) on the induction thread.

DL,
Well your back in another thread (inductive thread). There you go referencing scripture again (yawn).

I also don't see how you can possible claim (c) or (d). The Bible is riddled with contradictions (e.g., http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/), and certainly appears to be cobbled together from disparate groups with fuzzy belief systems over a period of several centuries. There's certainly no evidence of God having "good character" in the Bible.

Would you like to be educated on the subject instead of taking another atheist's ignorant conjecture as GOSPEL? I thought you wanted to seek truth...Empirical sense data. Can't do that if you read the data wrong.

Buffy,

Your rants and cheerleading aren't winning you any points.

You never make any rational arguments. You just theaten to "educate us" in your arcane ways.

Take your most recent comment:

Would you like to be educated on the subject instead of taking another atheist's ignorant conjecture as GOSPEL? I thought you wanted to seek truth...Empirical sense data. Can't do that if you read the data wrong.

Don't you see? Your comeback is just an insult, not a serious rebuttal.

In your response to Leon, you say:

Yes, I know your reference about set theory. I'm going to suggest that you read Hislops "Two Babylons" and then make that statement (if you can) again.

Maybe you should make your point instead of dodging the question. A nice short, cogent answer will do.

Why would debating all religions presuppose the existence of a God? As anyone knows in debate, one must understand the concept in order to offer the affirmative or the negative. By offering the negative you are affirming the positive and then countering it. The concept must exist to debate it.

Ah. So unicorns exist? Thor too? By your reasoning, just saying Thor doesn't exist means he exists.

Besides, had you actually understood my posts you would see that I don't believe in the concept of God because I deem it to be meaningless. Propositions about God's existence are neither true nor false, but just nonsensical. I have been arguing all along that you are deluded by language. "God exists" is grammatically correct, but mere grammatical correctness doesn't make a sentence meaningful. If I string some random words together, e.g., "Squiggle exposes dimetrodon squared," I don't get a meaningful sentence just because I have verbs and nouns. Meaning requires empirical test.

BTW, atheism means "without God," not "against God."

Well, Well Well DL

Got your dander up did I? Slow day a school is it? Hope your brother (the cheerleader)is there to help you here.

Here's one for you. I have to admit that answering you is difficult because you are so inconsistent that staying on point with you is almost impossible..but let's give it a try.

Back to the old Unicorn example. I understand the concept of a Unicorn just like I understand the Laws of Logic. I, as a Christian, can make sense of what a Unicorn was because I can make similarly sense of supernatural phenomenon, textual analysis, human intuition and so on. You as an atheist cannot. For you there is no evidence of Unicorns therefore they don't exist. How do you know they never existed. Have you ever read Chatwin's "In Patagonia". Or seen the cave paintings in Lascaux,France? Or actually read the Bible on the subject? I tell you what, DL, I'll just let you do some historical research on Unicorns and get back to me before you step in it again. If you were better read you would be know where Thor came from....I guess my "arcane way" of actually researching the subject matter instead of just throwing out a vacuous argument such as you have doesn't meet with your approval, DL. I have given you some scholarly books for you to refer. Should I also read the books to you as well?

Your rants and cheerleading aren't winning you any points.

You never make any rational arguments. You just theaten to "educate us" in your arcane ways

Don't you see? Your comeback is just an insult, not a serious rebuttal.

YAWN

Besides, had you actually understood my posts you would see that I don't believe in the concept of God because I deem it to be meaningless.

Who care's what you believe. It's just opinion. You're opinion is not what we are debating here.

I have been arguing all along that you are deluded by language. "God exists" is grammatically correct, but mere grammatical correctness doesn't make a sentence meaningful. If I string some random words together, e.g., "Squiggle exposes dimetrodon squared," I don't get a meaningful sentence just because I have verbs and nouns. Meaning requires empirical test.

Your statement is "Asensical". Need a Greek lesson, DL? In my worldview, your argument (words) is not meaningful. Can you give me scientific sense data that make your words meaningful. What is a word? Can you give me empirical test to prove what a word is? How about a number? Can you give me sense data to show me what a number is? Do you know what they are?

Back to the old Unicorn example. I understand the concept of a Unicorn just like I understand the Laws of Logic. I, as a Christian, can make sense of what a Unicorn was because I can make similarly sense of supernatural phenomenon, textual analysis, human intuition and so on. You as an atheist cannot. For you there is no evidence of Unicorns therefore they don't exist. How do you know they never existed.

There you go again. You state something to be true (i.e., you can make sense of unicorns because you are a Christian, but I cannot because I am an atheist), but you don't say why. That's not debate at all, just a statement of what you believe.

Let's go back to the question you were supposed to answer.

Why would debating all religions presuppose the existence of a God? As anyone knows in debate, one must understand the concept in order to offer the affirmative or the negative. By offering the negative you are affirming the positive and then countering it. The concept must exist to debate it.

I know what a unicorn is and it's perfectly sensible. There's just no compelling evidence they exist. Similarly, I can imagine a Porsche 911 in my garage. That doesn't mean a Porsche 911 exists in my garage.

You, on the other hand, think that unicorns (or leprechauns, or fairies, or elves) must exist simply because you can conceive of them. It's no wonder you believe in God if you think that every mythical creature must exist in order to be conceived of.

Testy aren't we.

There you go again. You state something to be true (i.e., you can make sense of unicorns because you are a Christian, but I cannot because I am an atheist), but you don't say why. That's not debate at all, just a statement of what you believe.

I guess I should really break it down one more time for you. Now follow closely...
My Christian Worldview allows me to make sense of what a Unicorn is (whether it is real or mythical). Your world view which as you have stated has to have empirical sense data to give something meaning (your words not mine). Your implied statement is that Unicorns don't/didn't exist because there is no evidence. In order to make sense of what a Unicorn is you have to borrow from my worldview since yours does not. SO YES YOU CAN MAKE SENSE OF WHAT UNICORNS ARE...BY USING THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW. It's that plain. You just can't admit that your worldview has to borrow from mine.

Similarly, I can imagine a Porsche 911 in my garage. That doesn't mean a Porsche 911 exists in my garage.

How about this...You don't exist because I have seen no empirical evidence that you do. All I have is your word for it. This could just be a program responding to the thread. Since you are submitting the same balderdash that I have read before from atheists it just might be software. There's just no compelling evidence that you exist. Therefore in your worldview, I'm debating air (which is just what I have been thinking for the past few weeks).

Enough of this fun.

I'M WATING FOR THE EMPIRICAL TEST THAT TELLS ME WHAT A NUMBER IS.

DL,

This one's for you!

Most scientific papers are probably wrong....

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7915

Ah, empirical evidence...ain't it grand.

Most scientific papers are probably wrong...

Well, that's sort of refreshing. A religionist unwilling to claim the mantle of science as her own. Most religionists are all too eager to take ownership of science's success in curing disease, giving us food, shelter, energy, transportation, entertainment and the like. Clerics write about curing disease or feeding the hungry, but they never get around to magically doing it. They can only do it consistent with naturalism and using engineering principles derived via the scientific method.

Your world view which as you have stated has to have empirical sense data to give something meaning (your words not mine).

Ha! I never said that one has to actually observe a thing for it to have meaning. You just have to be able to say what empirical test would verify or falsify that thing's existence. Unicorns do have meaning to logical positivists because we can define the experiment that would verify their existence if they did in fact exist, e.g., photos, X-rays, DNA tests, physical exams, fossils, etc.

This is wholly different from the proposition that God exists. You cannot say what experiment or experience would be inconsistent with your claim because, by definition, your God theory predicts that the universe will appear exactly as it appears, no matter what appears.

I'M WATING FOR THE EMPIRICAL TEST THAT TELLS ME WHAT A NUMBER IS.

You had one in primary school. You counted like objects. You associated a different symbol with each set of objects that had a different number of like objects. Later, you learned of addition by pooling like objects and comparing the symbols applicable to the sets before and after the pooling operation. In advanced mathematics, you learn to use other symbols that may be placeholders for numbers, etc. You're welcome.

Ha! I never said that one has to actually observe a thing for it to have meaning. You just have to be able to say what empirical test would verify or falsify that thing's existence.

So you trust authority of others to provide your validation? I thought that was a failing of those that beleived in God?

This is wholly different from the proposition that God exists. You cannot say what experiment or experience would be inconsistent with your claim because, by definition, your God theory predicts that the universe will appear exactly as it appears, no matter what appears.

No. Only that the assumptions that allow us to make coherent sense of the world are only accounted for if God exists. Your position is that we hold those assumptions without needing any account. Of course, this keeps you from challenging others with your account of those assumptions because you ultimately cannot invoke an authority than your personal experience and your faith in a community that is statistically wrong more than half the time.

You counted like objects. You associated a different symbol with each set of objects that had a different number of like objects. Later, you learned of addition by pooling like objects and comparing the symbols applicable to the sets before and after the pooling operation. In advanced mathematics, you learn to use other symbols that may be placeholders for numbers, etc. You're welcome.

This is wrong. Church got past the failures of Russell by showing that there could never be an assignment of sets (or other things) that explained numbers, only the assignment to the operation itself. So your ostensive account is wrong and led to paradoxes. So, a number is actually an abstraction of activity - not a recognition of shared properties. For someone who invokes CS concepts such as Neural Netorks and computability... this is stuff that should be pretty basic to the history of the Philosophy of Mathematics and Foundations of CS.

If you would like to learn more, a good layman's book is David Berlinski's "Advent of the Algorithm."

Your welcome.

tim,
You beat me to it.

DL,

Humm...

"The only propositions that make any sense (i.e., that have any definition) are those which are falsifiable in principle with sense-data.

Want me to site your post number on this one? Do you realize how silly you sound? You're so irratic that you can't even remember what you have posted.
Even the simplest of requests...

You had one in primary school. You counted like objects. You associated a different symbol with each set of objects that had a different number of like objects. Later, you learned of addition by pooling like objects and comparing the symbols applicable to the sets before and after the pooling operation. In advanced mathematics, you learn to use other symbols that may be placeholders for numbers, etc. You're welcome.

Counting symbols are not numbers. It is a representation of a number. Pooling like OBJECTS is not pooling numbers,,,Objects are not numbers...placeholders are not numbers... numbers are numbers. You have not answered the question...Your Welcome.

DL,
what do you want to do with this?

Ha! I never said that one has to actually observe a thing for it to have meaning

your post on induction thread..

I mean that a meaningful proposition is one that can be verified or falsified empirically.

Keith,
I would like to suggest that you have a separate thread where DL and others can continue the discussion. I would like to return to the object of the thread which was the discussion of evil. What do you think?

tim,

"Ha! I never said that one has to actually observe a thing for it to have meaning. You just have to be able to say what empirical test would verify or falsify that thing's existence." So you trust authority of others to provide your validation? I thought that was a failing of those that beleived in God?

Oh, no. Not you, too. Neither of you are grasping this concept.

It's not a question of having other people do the verification and trusting their reports. It's more fundamental than that. It applies even if there is only one entity in the picture.

I am saying that you can only know the meaning of a proposition if you can say what other propositions are consistent with it, and more to the point, what propositions are inconsistent with it. That means you have to be able to equate the proposition to a procedure for its verification or falsification. Can you be said to understand the proposition "cats are furry" without having any procedure for verifying its validity? Similarly, can you claim to understand the proposition "only Calico cats are renormalizable" when there is no conceivable way to apply the mathematical algorithm of renormalization to a Calico cat?

No. Only that the assumptions that allow us to make coherent sense of the world are only accounted for if God exists. Your position is that we hold those assumptions without needing any account. Of course, this keeps you from challenging others with your account of those assumptions because you ultimately cannot invoke an authority than your personal experience and your faith in a community that is statistically wrong more than half the time.

Ha! Science has produced all the knowledge and understanding we have.

You are pushing language beyond its own limitations.

To "account for" consistency of the universe (and all its constituent propositions), you will need to produce a proposition that is at once independent of that consistency, and yet logically relatable to it. This is patently nonsensical. Anything logically relatable to the universe is actually part of the universe.

This is wrong. Church got past the failures of Russell by showing that there could never be an assignment of sets (or other things) that explained numbers, only the assignment to the operation itself. So your ostensive account is wrong and led to paradoxes. So, a number is actually an abstraction of activity - not a recognition of shared properties.

Gosh, I don't recall doing lambda calculus in primary school! Of course we can define numbers using other means, but formal representations are recognized as being numbers based on correlation with intuitive numbers. The intuitive meaning of numbers is learned with countable objects. Formalities follow later.

Buffy,

The only propositions that make any sense (i.e., that have any definition) are those which are falsifiable in principle with sense-data.

Ever heard of the common English expression "in principle"?

Try reading it again.

Once again Dl,
I have to thank you for giving me a target rich environment. You are so far a field now, it's going to be really hard for you to get back.

I am saying that you can only know the meaning of a proposition if you can say what other propositions are consistent with it, and more to the point, what propositions are inconsistent with it. That means you have to be able to equate the proposition to a procedure for its verification or falsification.

How do you know (since you have now changed your stance from witnessing to just knowing- is that intuition for you) all propositions to determine consistency? How do you know what you know is correct? If you don't know all consistencies, how can you determine verification or falsification. How do you know what you recognize as being consistent? You just have no way to turn here. Like tim said...you're trusting someone else's assumptions because you can't know or witness everything. You're trusting others...get the point?

Ha! Science has produced all the knowledge and understanding we have.

How do you know? Have you witnessed all science? This time you should read the link...Most scientific papers are probably wrong....
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7915

Gosh, I don't recall doing lambda calculus in primary school! Of course we can define numbers using other means, but formal representations are recognized as being numbers based on correlation with intuitive numbers. The intuitive meaning of numbers is learned with countable objects. Formalities follow later.

Gosh, I don't think you have even read Church, Kleene or Russell.

The intuitive meaning of numbers is learned with countable objects

How do you know your intuition is correct? It's my intuition that you are just a software program..everything I have collected in data points to that. My intuition has always been right. Therefore you do not exist.

I repeat the question for you to try to answer once again.

I'M WATING FOR THE EMPIRICAL TEST THAT TELLS ME WHAT A NUMBER IS.

DL,

Now your debating yourself.

The only propositions that make any sense (i.e., that have any definition) are those which are falsifiable in principle with sense-data.
Ever heard of the common English expression "in principle"?

For there to have "in principle" there has to be agreement between the parties...I don't recall there being any agreement between us on principle. Now if your talking about your semantics having agreement in similarity....they have been a revolving door since you began...you change your stances as often as I blink my eyes. Principle implies an unchanging stance...can't see any there from you so far...except arbitrariness and inconsistency.

Why don't you take a few minutes...collect your thoughts and try to get yourself together here. A well reasoned response would be welcome. Give me the empirical test that proves that a number exists.

How do you know (since you have now changed your stance from witnessing to just knowing- is that intuition for you) all propositions to determine consistency? If you don't know all consistencies, how can you determine verification or falsification.

I'm not changing my stance. You have just never been able to perceive what my stance is.

Here are two propositions: X = 5 and X = 7. They are inconsistent. I do not need to know that Y = 17 to know that the propositions about X are inconsistent. So why would you think that falsification would require me to know every proposition?

How do you know what you recognize as being consistent?

We learn to recognize it through empirical means, of course. Logic is the calculus of consistency.

You're not going to get very far with rational argument if you aren't going to assume the validity of logic as a starting point. Without the assumption of logic, you cannot claim consistency between the propositions that form the steps in your claim.

You just have no way to turn here. Like tim said...you're trusting someone else's assumptions because you can't know or witness everything. You're trusting others...get the point?

I'm not claiming that one has to know or witness everything. I never have. I have always claimed that you have to be able to witness at least something predicted by a proposition, not everything predicted by that proposition. You're like a stuck record.

FYI...

in principle - adv : with regard to fundamentals although not concerning details

If I give you this proposition 6532465 + 7653247 = 14185712, what does it mean? Doesn't it mean that by performing some symbolic manipulations (in this case, rules of addition), you can convert the first two numbers into the third?

If I tell you that there are three cats in the room, what does that mean? Doesn't it mean that if you look in the room, you will see evidence of three cats? Isn't the number three associated with the mechanical process of counting the cats in the room?

We are not born with the full concept of numbers preprogrammed into us. We have innate empirical abilities to count, but we dont have mathematics as a built-in, pre-defined concept.

The Piraha tribe (http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/fuzzy.html) has no words for numbers. In their environment, there is no need for numbers any larger. They cannot even distinguish between say, 10- and 12-item collections. Since they have no empirical need for such numbers, they never created language or concepts for such numbers. However, studies show that humans and animals can count as high as 3, visually and innately. Furthermore, simple neural networks can also count objects. I do not claim that simple neural nets understand numbers, but it demonstrates that the count of objects in a visual field is an empirical fact (because it can be performed by a simple, deterministic, machine). Language allows us to further enhance our definition of numbers beyond small visually distinguishable values.

So much for numbers. Let's move on to meaning in general.

Let's suppose we speak different languages. I point to a rabbit and say gavagai. Does gavagai mean rabbit? Or lunch? Or brown rabbit? Suppose you theorize that I mean rabbit. How will you refine your theory of what gavagai means? You have to use empirical means to do so, e.g., hold up lunch, or a gray rabbit and see if I still say gavagai!.

This thought experiment applies equally well when children learn their native languages. They have to form theories of meaning and verify or falsify them empirically. The alternative would be that children know all of the words and have fully developed conceptions and vocabularies when they are born, and that they don't need empirical experiences in order to create their conceptions.

In response to my argument, you might claim that all our base concepts are empirical, but that higher order concepts need not be. I don't see how this is possible. I can certainly create symbol manipulation procedures (e.g., arranging words in novel ways) that will allow me to synthesize new propositions that are not inspired by empirical experience (at least not directly). For example, I can create mathematical systems that are internally consistent, and which contain truths that don't depend on physical-empirical claims, e.g., whether or not it is sunny outside. However, mathematics is still empirical in a computational sense. I devise rules for computations and apply those rules to obtain theorems (propositions). The meaning of those theorems is equivalent to the application of computing rules to the axioms. The Pythagorean theorem does not itself "mean" anything about the physical world. I can create an association between the Pythagorean theorem and the outside world (e.g., physical, triangular objects), but that's not the meaning of the theorem per se.

I can also synthesize a proposition using words for empirical concepts, strung together in some novel way, e.g., "the cat is highly strung." My suspicions about its meaning derive from the observation that we don't usually string cats up on wires. If I create or encounter novel propositions like this, I will need to create theories about what the proposition means. The only way to validate those theories is to form some sort of connection with other propositions whose meanings have already been established empirically. The only way to know for certain it to devise experimental tests and ask the speaker whether the tests would provide support for the proposition or not. In common language, we may do this by rephrasing the proposition as a question in terms already agreed by both parties, e.g., "the cat that is suspended by wires or thread?"

Now let's consider the propositions of existence like God exists.

First we have to understand the meaning of the verb "to exist." This verb means "to have actual empirical attributes." My TV does not exist without any of its actual empirical attributes. There is no "spirit of TV" that has no attributes of the TV. Similarly, your TV exists independently because, even if it were atom for atom identical to mine, it has different actual empirical properties like inertia at your house instead of inertia at mine.

As we know, there are a multitude of interpretations of God in different cultures an contexts. So we then try to narrow down the definition of God to the point that it can be reconciled with existing propositions. All physical Gods are fairly easily dealt with. They are not much different from "a large hairy gentlement with four arms has actual empirical attributes," for example.

The problem arises when you explicitly try to construct a definition of God that has no actual empirical attributes. If you define God this way, the proposition "God exists" is equivalent to "The entity that has no empirical attributes has actual empirical attributes."

So, if the claim of God's existence is to have any sense, you have to say what the actual empirical attributes of God are. As I see it, your God was specifically constructed to be beyond experimental reach because falsification experiments had a tendency to nullify religious belief.

Most evidentiary claims about God fall over immediately. Your presuppositional claim requires an extra step.

You see, the role of God as guarantor of consistency and physical law isn't an actual empirical attribute. The consistency and physical laws may be empirical, but the act of guaranteeing them isn't. We can say that P1 guarantees P2 when P2 is logically consequent to P1. Yet, in your claim, P2 is the proposition that the universe (including computation) is consistent and logical. If P2 is false, then you cannot use that very same logical consistency to conclude any relation between P1 and P2. You have to assume P2 to make any claim about the relation between P1 and P2. If the only function of God is to guarantee P2, then he is equivalent to P2.

So if God can be said to meaningfully exist, he must have some actual empirical attributes. Since he doesn't, by your definition, the proposition "God exists" is self-contradictory.

Why do people think they know meanings when they don't? The short answer is by word association. What is the summer solstice? Technically, it is a geometric arrangement of the Earth relative to the Sun. But to a lot of people it means "eat, drink and be merry!" Not literally, but by association with historical celebrations of the event. The meanings of words can be corrupted by associating those words with empirically related things. This isn't always good or always bad, but it is certainly bad when you demand clarity. Knowledge requires specificity. This is what is lacking in most conceptions of God.

People associate God with a father figure (such as their own father), with celebrations of God, with congregation, with ultimate goodness, with mercy and so on. Each person has their own personal definition of God based on their own personal definition of what is good, what is the correct order of the universe and so on. Since people have what they would regard as well-formed ideas of associated concepts, they leap to the conclusion that God is itself a well-defined concept. Indeed, I would guess that most people's conception of God is far more pagan (old bearded guy on a throne) than the average theologian's view.

I applaud your attempt to define God in some clear, definite terms instead of some sort of vague Rorschach ink blot. Unfortunately, your claims appear to rely on reasoning beyond logic and on dubious measures of meaning.

One again... so much bloviating and so little new.

I'm not changing my stance. You have just never been able to perceive what my stance is

Buffy and I (and others) get what your stance is, but we view it as inconsistent and incoherent. You oscillate between claiming to be a logical positivist and falling back into pragmatism. Let's have a little recap:

cf. - from near the beginning

The excuse given for abandoning LP was that imprecision in language made logical positivism impractical. However, this conclusion is unjustified based on the works of Wittgenstein or of Quine. Language can be made as precise as we want it to be by defining and performing more precise experiments. We learn languages (even internal ones) by using empirical measurements, so language cannot have meaning that extends beyond empirical measurements (and, yes, mathematics is empirical, too).

Of course... this is a rather polemical positioning of what really happened. The "imprecision in language" was the simple and obvious fact that there was no empirical means of verifiying the verificationist principle and, therefore, it was a meaningless statement by its own formulation. Even the amended form of falsificationism - much like Russells' reconstitution of Frege's logicism - fail to a similar attack. So, self-referential absurdity in a logical sense is from your point of view an "imprecision of language."

Of course in your own blog, you deal with this as follows:

One ploy used by metaphysicians to try to escape the clutches of logical positivism is to claim that the principle of verifiability is itself not falsifiable. This is true, but irrelevant. The principle of verifiability is just a heuristic. What is a heuristic? A heuristic is a way to identify the useful subset of solutions to a given problem. Example: if you reach the rim of a volcanic crater and realize you've dropped your Geiger counter, where do you search? Answer: on the cooler, solid rocks and not in the lava pools, for if your Geiger counter fell into a lava pool you don't really want it back. The heuristic does not tell you the solution, it only tells you which solutions are useful to you. The heuristic principle of verifiability is just a demarcation between those propositions that do and do not relate to experience. A priori (independent of experience), we may posit that propositions that are not verifiable are allowed to have definite truth values (by our analogy, the Geiger counter fell into a lava pool). Alas, such propositions will never have anything to do with our experience.

So, it is all just a "heuristic." And that is what "tells you which solutions are useful to you." This is essentially pragmatism by any other name. SO.. your "pragmatic principle of verifiability" is not so much beautiful in its consistency, but useful to you even in its inconsistency. It has sufficient utility for you to live with the inconsistency. And the fact that I, or any other remotely apt philosopher, would not tolerate this inconsistency makes us metaphysicians trying to pull the wool over peoples eyes.

Unfortunately, your claims appear to rely on reasoning beyond logic and on dubious measures of meaning.

I think the dubious measures of meaning are shown above. As for reasoning beyond logic, we would be in good company here. Since we have made a bit of sparing about Wittgenstein - let me throw this out: "Ethics does not treat of the world. Ethics must be a condition of the world, like logic." It's from his Notebooks and relates to 6.421 in the TLP. Another area of interest is the 6.41 section. In any case, the point is that we believe that something beyond empirical investigation is needed to justify knowledge. Faith in a heuristic that cannot be intersubjectively defined (because its validation is its individual utility) is not acceptable to us as a foundation.

So much for numbers. Let's move on to meaning in general.

So, from one article in Feb. 2005 you are moving to this substantial generalization? While intriguing, the article doesn't satisfy the previous requirement for an empirical test for what numbers ARE. It demonstrates how numbers are used in a particular lingusitic context - where a form of life doesn't require precise numbers to be used - but doesn't deal with
earlier problem in defining numbers.

However, mathematics is still empirical in a computational sense. I devise rules for computations and apply those rules to obtain theorems (propositions). The meaning of those theorems is equivalent to the application of computing rules to the axioms. The Pythagorean theorem does not itself "mean" anything about the physical world. I can create an association between the Pythagorean theorem and the outside world (e.g., physical, triangular objects), but that's not the meaning of the theorem per se.

Do you find it stange that you are on the one hand laying out the intricate order required in programming to accomplish certain complex correspondence with the physical world (i.e. the program's chain of computations must correspond to the way the world is in some susbstantial capacity to be viewed as correct) and yet maintaining, on the other hand, that in the mirror context of the human mind and the world itself (with all of its "programs") is not validated in any such way. Instead, it is validated by the current state of one subprogram - you. How is that consistent? Is not the consistency to look for the Programmer's comments and compiler constraints? In any case, I just can't make any sense of the narrowness and arbitrariness of the perspective you advocate -particularly with the utter failure to rebut the internal incoherency outlined above.

The consistency and physical laws may be empirical, but the act of guaranteeing them isn't. We can say that P1 guarantees P2 when P2 is logically consequent to P1. Yet, in your claim, P2 is the proposition that the universe (including computation) is consistent and logical. If P2 is false, then you cannot use that very same logical consistency to conclude any relation between P1 and P2. You have to assume P2 to make any claim about the relation between P1 and P2. If the only function of God is to guarantee P2, then he is equivalent to P2. So if God can be said to meaningfully exist, he must have some actual empirical attributes. Since he doesn't, by your definition, the proposition "God exists" is self-contradictory.

You conflate a lot of things here. First, I don’t know what “guarantees” means here. It isn’t “implies” but (as I will formulate below) can be “justifies epistemic necessity”. Secondarily, it is not that P2 logically consequent, but that rational belief in the epistemic necessity of P2 is implied by P1. P2 as you formulate it cannot be false without any system falling apart that would allow that to be false. This is your point, but it is trivial and should have led to a better formulation.

Here is a more straightforward formalization:

To start with, it would be better to say that for M (current Model of the world - i.e. the world as it currently is within the limitations of our finite observance and capacities to understand) there are rules Xi (read X "sub i" for an index on X) that are made necessary by G (the big “G” God). This is a very compressed form, so I will attempt to unpack.

First, we must allow for the principle of induction. Second, we must allow for necessity (ala C.I. Lewis’ necessity rule in S5). Third, due to limitations on human induction, we must constrain that while a rule of M, X(1) (such as “it is true that E=MC2”) , can be epistemically justified by a finite set of experiments, those rules cannot be either necessary or applied outside of the testing agent’s (A) theorems, submodal “m”. The latter part of three is the controversial part here. The premise of presuppositionalism is that the conjectures are not justifiably extensible from a submodel, m, to the full model M, without an inter-subjective bridge. The reason for this is that A makes an observation (O) and after some set of observations (Oi) he or she can create a predictor (X) that anticipates future observations (Of).

Unfortunately, A cannot hold X unless the observations (Oi) are ENTIRELY sufficient to imply X. As we have covered here in this thread, some of those assumptions are about previous laws or rules that were given by authorities (Xp), regularity of natural phenomenon previously observed with future observables (i.e. that M is static and that any dynamic feature is an X of M), trustworthiness of sense perception(Xs), and many others. Now, since these assumptions require even greater epistemic justification than the Xi that the agent (A) came up with, let us consider a couple of alternatives for their grounding. Prop. 1 – these assumptions (we will call them “P” for presuppositions) are believed by A as prima facie evident. Under this assumption, doubting any of these leads to absurdity, so that A holds on to them fideistically. The downside of this approach is that it provides no concern for recognized inconsistencies in these assumptions (how to know when someone is impaired in their senses) because A’s impression of the situation governs all grounding. It works for A, so it must be true. Utility = necessity.

Prop. 2 is that these assumptions are grounded not by individual utility but by group utility. While the perceptions of on A may be wrong, the perceptions of An (read “A sub n”) are able to ground the aforementioned assumptions better than the individual agent and therefore represents a stronger ground. Group Utility = necessity.

Finally, there is Prop. 3. Prop. 3 is that the assumptions are justified because they are consistent with the existence of an infinite Being with particular properties. It is not that they exist because they are consistent (which is also the case – but that is ontological, not epistemological) but that our operating belief in P is highest because of Prop. 3. In a lot of ways, this Prop. 3. is not about what exists as a result of God’s existence (that is best left to Anselm or, in the modern context, people like Alvin Plantinga) but about what we are rational to believe given what grounds our presuppositions. It is the Christian belief, at least of those that consider themselves Presuppostionalists, that this gap in justifying rational belief in assumptions that are taken for granted in most actions is exemplary of something that should be straightforward and obvious to show.

The idea that the main alternatives are individual or group pragmatic formulations is striking. For the Christian worldview, there is no difference between ‘m’ and ‘M.’ For the individual pragmatist, it is hard to understand how ‘m’ can encroach on ‘M’. With the group, ‘m’ could be bigger, but it is hard to discern how it could get more certain since the only thing that would change is the number of observables. With Prop. 3, an infinite Being satisfies the problem of finite induction, so His revelation (natural or special) and all consistent deductions therefrom lead to a qualitatively different justification. Epistemically, this is above reproach. To be more specific, this is where necessity reenters the picture. The Christian view actually makes these assumptions obtain necessary status as a result of the existence of God having particular properties. In the other views, the assumptions can never reach epistemological necessity even though you plainly admit that they are necessary because a denial yields absurdity.

Your reply to the presuppositional argument thus far has been:

(1) Propositions such as God exists are nonsensical.
(2) Our assumptions are heuristics grounded by utility to us.
(3) Our observations are all reducible to material interactions in the neural networks in our brains
(4) The God of Scripture is ludicrous because of numerous contradictions in Scripture in links provided by you

My reply has been – (1) Logical Positivism is an incoherent and self-referentially absurd philosophy that you have yet to show a compelling reason for reconstitute.
(2) This is essentially admitting (1) is untenable and retreating to pragmatism. Pragmatism is fine to hold, but poor to argue from. (3) Is conjecture and rather naïve – especially given the scientific immaturity of understanding the brain. It is more an article of faith put forward than an argument. (4) Once again, the link provided was beneath some of the level of argument I’ve seen thus far. It was juvenile and showed no concern for an investigation of the context of any of the citations.

Following this post, I have no intention of replying to future posts unless you can justify in some novel way your logical positivism. It is the crux of every post that you make and nearly all in the philosophical community would consider it bereft of credibility, so I will await a decent defense of it. Once it is clear your critical view has a leg to stand on, I’ll be happy to clarify remaining issues with the formulation (or really just sketch) of the presuppositional argument provided above.

PS - please don’t quote anymore Wittgenstein in attempt to support your positivism. It doesn’t help your case.

tim,

I bow at your intellectual altar, oh great one.

From your cheerleader,

Buffy

PS, Matthew 7:6

An Open Letter to Dr. Logic:

Dear DL:

While you are perhaps steaming over Tim's most recent evisceration of your arguments and considering if and how to respond, perhaps you might also deign to answer two very simple questions:

1. What "evidence" or circumstances in your life would allow you to recognize a "God" worthy of your worship?

2. How is Pascal's Wager logically incorrect?

Not Sam

Hello Not Sam,

Yes, I will be getting back to tim in good time. (BTW, tim, thanks for raising the level of precision of your argument).

Not Sam, your questions are fairly straightforward, so I'll try to get you a quick answer now.

What "evidence" or circumstances in your life would allow you to recognize a "God" worthy of your worship?

First, one has to ask for the definition of divinity. I suppose divinity is some mixture of beauty, morality and perfection that inspires sacrifice on the part of the worshipper.

Beauty, morality and perfection are as subjective as inspiration. Perfection is always relative to some specified task or purpose, and morality can never be codified as simplistic rules of behavior. One must have the sense to see the good exception to the general rule of law.

By my definition, I would name at least one human person as a goddess. Many other people qualify for some lower level of divinity. However, for me, no all-powerful creature could be regarded as divine if that creature demanded sacrifice from worshippers. I would consider it a moral affront to be asked to sacrifice my life for a being for whom my sacrifice would bring insignificant benefit. The benefit to such a being could only be in the entertainment value of seeing its worshippers die like dancing monkeys. Moreover, any voluntary worship of such a being would merely be a form of self-indulgence for the worshipper, as our relative significance would be zero.

Finally, a deity's willingness to remove suffering is a measure of its benificence. If there is an all-powerful creature out there, it either doesn't know about us, doesn't care about us, or is evil.

If a god-like entity came into being, lifted us all out of misery, amplified our intelligence and wisdom, and either a) demanded nothing in return, or b) elevated our power to a level at which our contributions would be of some significance, then I would probably deem that entity worthy of worship. Any being that intentionally created us and facilitated our suffering has really forfeited any claim to divinity in my book.

How is Pascal's Wager logically incorrect?

Well, in my view, the proposition being wagered is nonsensical.

For argument's sake, let's suppose that it were meaningful in some way. The whole wager depends on knowing what God actually wants (clerics always tell you they know this, BTW). It is presumed that God wants you to believe in his unbelievable self, and if you believe in him, you will be rewarded. But what if God doesn't want you to believe in unbelievable things like God? Then he will punish you for believing in him. So there is another wager that exactly offsets Pascal's original.

For clarity's sake, I asked:

Q: What "evidence" or circumstances in your life would allow you to recognize a "God" worthy of your worship?

To which you repolied, "First, one has to ask for the definition of divinity ...".

Let me be clear. I am speaking of the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of Jesus Chirst ... the God of the Bible. That is the definition of divinity for the purpose of this question. So, with that clarification, how would you answer the question?

Next, to Pascal's Wager ... let us assume, as did Pascal, that the traditional answer to "what God wants" is correct. Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that all those fine minds that came before us, the giants upon whose shoulders we stand, could actually apply reason to the great issues of their day and themselves came to the conclusion that God wants our faith and our obedience to his Word (insofar as we are able to comprehend it). Pascal was asserting that it makes NO LOGICAL SENSE to go against the belief system that posits a God of Creation, viz. the Bible. For you to simply discount Pascal's proposition as being "nonsensical" begs the question and seems to be filled with hubris if not solipsism. Please explain it to me that I am not forced to draw such conclusions.

Oh, sorry, Not Sam. I thought my answer was quite clear. As sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, nothing could make me believe in the supernatural. Period. Thus, if I invented a time machine, and actually witnessed the events of the Bible, I might believe in a powerful alien capable of performing biblical acts, but I would regard such a being as neither divine nor supernatural.

As for Pascal's Wager, it is you who is begging the question. I am to answer the question assuming that only Pascal's answer could be correct?

Look, the wager is correct within its microcosm of assumptions (i.e., about what God wants), but it has no bearing on the question of the existence of an actual God whose demands are unknown. So the wager collapses into an evidentiary argument based on your particular holy book (or interpretation of such). Since holy books are notoriously untrustworthy, the argument is useless. Indeed, similar arguments can be found in Hinduism.

Besides, is hedging the key to true faith? And if God says "do it or die," you must do it? It's self-contradictory to me. Bullies are not worthy of worship, though they might be able to compel it. It just gets exponentially sillier.

What if God tells you to kill someone for reasons unknown? Should you do it? Is whatever God commands morally right? And how do you know God is the one commanding you?

Hubris and solipsism? Try critical thinking.

I think I understand your beliefs a little better now, thank you. In your world, there is nothing true beyond your immediate senses and your understanding of "logic," with your understanding of "logic" trumping even your own senses, yes? Your logic is foundational, since, as you state, even if you were to witness the very act of Creation (in a Biblical sense) with your own eyes, it would not necessarily be something you would believe or trust, because it might be the act of some powerful alien, not deserving your veneration or even your respect. Right? Don't hedge now, Doctor Logic. This is what you are stating, is it not? I believe that is called solipsism, DL.

As for Pascal's Wager, I stated that Pascal's framing of the question was to be assumed. Given Pascal's assumptions, it becomes an exercise in logic only -- not a misguided moralistic lecture from the likes of your belief system which, by your own confession, is not based on any traditional system of belief other than your own (rather broken) concept of logic.

Assuming the framework of Pascal's Wager as stated by Pascal, it becomes a simple question of logic, doctor. It is curious to me that you cannot even acknowledge the elegant thinking of one of the giants on whose shoulders you claim to stand if you are "Dcotor Logic" after all.

There must be a number of illogical giants in your world ...

It occurs to me that if you cannot do better than you have doing with simple questions like these, you really don't want to even considering a rebuttal to tim's most recent posting. You will just embarrass yourself further.

Not Sam,

No, you don't understand at all. It isn't a question of not trusting one's senses. It is a question of knowing what inferences one can reasonably make from observation. What is the difference between your God and a super-powerful alien? And how can I observe these differences? Don't you see? When you claim that a thing is beyond empirical test, you are forced to admit that that thing is beyond all possible experience. Believing your senses is of zero utility when it comes to the supernatural.

As for veneration and respect, you are correct. I respect power like that of lightning or the cobra, for safety's sake. However, I cannot respect or venerate malice.

I said:

Look, the wager is correct within its microcosm of assumptions (i.e., about what God wants), but it has no bearing on the question of the existence of an actual God whose demands are unknown.

to which you replied:

Given Pascal's assumptions, it becomes an exercise in logic only -- not a misguided moralistic lecture from the likes of your belief system which, by your own confession, is not based on any traditional system of belief other than your own (rather broken) concept of logic.

Are you reading my posts at all? Do you think everyone but me accepts Pascal's Wager? Do you even believe that most theologians accept it?

Your "logic" seems to consist of blind faith in Blaise Pascal. Well, it's a jolly silly idea. If God just wants us to believe, Pascal's argument follows logically from a desire to save one's skin. But you don't know what God wants, do you? And saving one's skin isn't generally preferable to collaboration with a force that would spitefully harm those one loves.

Who Created you, DL? Did your consciousness just erupt from nothing into being by some Darwinian process? Is that what you really believe? Do you not harbor a "human spirit" somewhere within you that yearns to soar?

DL states: "If God just wants us to believe, Pascal's argument follows logically from a desire to save one's skin. But you don't know what God wants, do you? And saving one's skin isn't generally preferable to collaboration with a force that would spitefully harm those one loves."

Your response is filled with hubris, DL. Your perspective is so very limited ... as human beings, we don't even have a glimmer of the scope of divine consciousness. My goodness, we are still struggling with the nature of physical reality ... how many dimensions are there? Leading edge physics has it somewhere between 6 and 11, and we're still not sure if the math works out in all cases. The majority of scientists blindly accept Darwin and the Big Bang based on scant evidence and circular logic. And now it seems we need 11 physical dimensions, a model which we will NEVER be able to experimentally validate, to ensure the evidence fits our model ... which is now utimately based on faith, it would seem.

According to my belief system, knowing what God wants is discernable, based on prayer and faith in Him. Have you not heard of prayer? Have you ever sincerely tried it? You don't need to actually believe, DL ... just try it. Behave "as if" God (the God of the Bible) were real, just for a moment. Give it a shot. Experiment. You venerate science, don't you?

Try this experiment, and see what happens:

- Go into a private room, free of noise and interruption. Some place quiet, comfortable and safe.
- Relax. Calm yourself. Free your mind of chatter.
- Get on your knees and say (either aloud or to yourself), "Lord God, I am yours. Save me. Please forgive me for my sins. Please help me to know You."
- Repeat as necessary until your mind chatter abates sufficiently to really hear from the core of your being.

Give it a shot, DL. Do it in earnest, out of curiousity if nothing else.

Faith does not come like a bolt from the sky. It is a slow, methodical process. But it is a journey that begins with a single first step. Your belief in "logic" need not disappear, DL. You can still be a logical human being, if that is important to you. But I assure you, if you will simply give Christ a chance in your life, you will be amazed at the results.

I dare you.

To tim and Not Sam,
There is no way to convince a child having a tantrum not to have the tantrum. You have to wait until they mature and learn that having the tantrum is counter productive. And as you know, some children never grow up. The immaturity of DL's responses should instruct all believers the futility of reasoned debate with the unreasonable. If DL is a "vessel of wrath fitted for destruction", then there is nothing that can be said that will change that. Only the Holy Spirit can change hearts and it is up to Him whom He chooses. EVERYTHING is done per God's pleasure and plan.
DL's common misunderstanding of God's nature and man's need to shun responsibility for his own sin is part of God's way to divide the sheep from the goats.

Finally, a deity's willingness to remove suffering is a measure of its benificence. If there is an all-powerful creature out there, it either doesn't know about us, doesn't care about us, or is evil.

This total ignorance of the Holy God of the Bible is beyond explanation since there is such a wealth of literature to research to actually know what you are stating. Just as I have written over and over, when you boil all the bloviating down you reduce atheists to absurdity..atheism rests solely on mere arbitrary opinion...not facts... not logic...not scientific research.
So with that being said, I have lots of work to do and have to get on with it.

Not Sam,

Logic and reason won't do it for you. You have to resort to having me circularly believe in your ghosts so that I may believe in them. If you want to believe without reason, that's one thing. Just don't pretend logic and science are on your side. They aren't.

Did your consciousness just erupt from nothing into being by some Darwinian process? Is that what you really believe? Do you not harbor a "human spirit" somewhere within you that yearns to soar?

Yes. Yes. And, yes, I harbor a "human spirit" somewhere within me that yearns to soar.

Your perspective is so very limited ... as human beings, we don't even have a glimmer of the scope of divine consciousness.

And yet, you seem know exactly what this unknowable God wants. Curiously, a lot of other people believed that too (the inquisitors, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, the Aztec Kings, al-Qaeda, etc.).

Everyone who prays gets a different answer, most often the answer that they want to hear. Feelings and prayer cannot give reliable answers, that's what experience tells us.

The majority of scientists blindly accept Darwin and the Big Bang based on scant evidence and circular logic. And now it seems we need 11 physical dimensions, a model which we will NEVER be able to experimentally validate, to ensure the evidence fits our model ... which is now utimately based on faith, it would seem.

Wait. You're typing your responses on a computer made possible by the science of quantum mechanics and semiconductors. This is blind faith?

Quantum Electrodynamics has an unseen phase dimension, and yet it can accurately predict the magnetic dipole moment of an atom to 10 decimal places. Science is self-correcting because theories must always make predictions and those predictions must be validated by physical evidence.

Science enables us to do engineering, providing food and water to the hungry, making long distance communication possible, facilitating education, defending us from enemies, finding cures for disease and generally enriching our lives.

As you so ably demonstrate, religion is the blind faith that opposes science and opposes our ability to help ourselves.

Looks like you're the one who shows hubris in the face of reality.

Buffy,

Only the Holy Spirit can change hearts and it is up to Him whom He chooses. EVERYTHING is done per God's pleasure and plan.

"And so God commanded, 'Die, dancing monkey, die!'"

God has the power to choose everyone, but doesn't, preferring instead to make the unchosen suffer for eternity. I hardly see how that is either fair or benificent. I wouldn't do that to livestock, let alone my children.

God has the power to choose everyone, but doesn't, preferring instead to make the unchosen suffer for eternity. I hardly see how that is either fair or benificent. I wouldn't do that to livestock, let alone my children.

That's right. And it doesn't matter what you think. It's not your gig...you don't make the rules. Perhaps you should ask yourself why he obviously hasn't chosen you.

That's right. And it doesn't matter what you think. It's not your gig...you don't make the rules. Perhaps you should ask yourself why he obviously hasn't chosen you.

Because he doesn't want to, remember?

Only the Holy Spirit can change hearts and it is up to Him whom He chooses. EVERYTHING is done per God's pleasure and plan.

It's got nothing to do with me.

Suppose that the world were controlled by a dictator, and this dictator has the power to keep people alive for indefinite periods of time in a state of either bliss or torment. The dictator decides to keep your friends and family in torment. Should you accept the dictator's offer to live in the state of bliss?

Or is your point that you don't get to decide? The dictator drugs you into a state of bliss such that you don't care that your loved ones are suffering.

And how do we possibly establish, in either scenario, that this dictator is worthy of respect and veneration without positing either that (1) the highest morality is saving one's own skin, or (2) that human lives are worthless?

Nature may be indifferent to humankind, but at least in a natural world we are free to give meaning to life, treat life as precious and become more than human. Unlike Nature, your God is not indifferent, but sadistic. Maybe you should name your theology "Vichy Theology".

DL,
Do you believe in a woman's right to choose.

Do you believe in a woman's right to choose.

Yes.

Inconsisency...ain't it awful.

Nature may be indifferent to humankind, but at least in a natural world we are free to give meaning to life, treat life as precious and become more than human.

DL,
Was the Iraq liberation morally wrong?

Your views on womens rights are perfectly consistent with your belief that human life is worthless to humans, and that we're here to suffer at the pleasure of a monstrous super-being who treats us worse than livestock.

I would explain the consistency and morality of my position, but that would bring up biology, and I know you have no patience or respect for science.

Was the Iraq liberation morally wrong?

It would have been morally good if it had actually occurred.

The Iraqis suffer more now than they did under Saddam. It needn't have been that way. Another 400,000 coalition troops probably could have secured the place, especially if we hadn't disbanded the Iraqi Army. Also, if we had paid any attention to the plight of the Iraqi's immediately after the invasion, that would have helped. Alas, we went in on transparently false pretenses, and thus with no significant coalition support (unlike Gulf War I). Botched by Bush, as usual.

As it stands now, the Iraqi's are worse off, we are worse off, and the world is worse off as Iraq continues to crank out hardened terrorists trained in urban warfare. Doesn't look moral anymore, does it?

BTW, if we need 40,000 troops to secure New Orleans (where a million people were displaced), do you think we might need more than 140,000 troops to secure a country of 26 million people who don't even want us there?

Your views on womens rights are perfectly consistent with your belief that human life is worthless to humans, and that we're here to suffer at the pleasure of a monstrous super-being who treats us worse than livestock.

I don't remember saying that I was pro-abortion. You're the one that garners that view. In fact I'm pro-life. So much for your respect for human life.

You still can't get out of the habit of ignorant conjecture can you? It's like a disease for you. It's the ebola virus for atheists.

The Iraqis suffer more now than they did under Saddam.

Saddam’s Genocide of the Kurds and Shia:
http://www.kdp.pp.se/chemical.html
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/07/D8CFHUN80.html
http://hnn.us/articles/862.html

Saddam’s Torture Chambers:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/02/sprj.irq.iraq.torture/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-04-13-saddam-secrets-usat_x.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/09/iraq/main548570.shtml
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200307/ai_n9292953

Saddam’s Rape Rooms:
http://www.warroom.com/iraqiwar/firstperson.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/4637/terr33a.html

Saddam’s MASS GRAVES:
http://massgraves.info/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3850989.stm
http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/legacyofterror.html

Saddam Bilking His People:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/07/D8CFJC180.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/rosett/rosett200505121840.asp

As it stands now, the Iraqi's are worse off, we are worse off, and the world is worse off as Iraq continues to crank out hardened terrorists trained in urban warfare. Doesn't look moral anymore, does it?

Saddam’s Oil for Terror:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/rosett200404182336.asp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3317637.stm
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41487

Saddam’s Al Qaeda operating out of Iraq for years:
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040624-112921-3401r.htm
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/033jgqyi.asp
http://www.techcentralstation.com/092503F.html

Iraqis celebrate:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3317637.stm
http://www.arkcity.net/stories/041003/com_0001.shtml
http://www.water.az.gov/NewsArchive/iraq101503.htm
http://www.strategypage.com/respect/articles/iraq_the_untold_story.asp
http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2004/0819/p01s03-woeu.html?s=ent

Oh and don't let's forget the "HUMAN SHREDDERS":
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r108:S23JY3-0013:

In Closing I’d like to offer the below as the final statement regarding your naïve and moronic assertions to the Iraqi Liberation:

http://truthminers.com/hoaxarticles/iraq.htm

And Just in case you don’t actually read it from the link………I’ve take the liberty of copying it below so you have no excuse. Please not the original message from Reynolds at end of piece.

Have things in Iraq vastly improved since President Bush announced that major combat in Iraq was over (May 2003)?

At first, the message seemed more like a pro-Bush rallying cry than anything else. Every version I saw was signed by a different serviceman or woman. However, I have found that the majority of information came directly from the website of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Some versions contain the contention that "almost every Democratic leader in the House and Senate has fought Bush on just about every aspect of his handling of the the Iraq war and the the effort towards reconstruction, and continues to claim what a failure this conflict has been." In fact, most of the Democrats have voted for both going to war and reconstruction spending.

Just for the record, other bits and pieces I've heard by both Paul Bremer and by soldiers stationed in Iraq still indicate that it will take years to completely rebuild the infrastructure.

The parts of the message thus far confirmed by the Coalition Provisional Authority are colored green. The rest I'm still trying to get confirmation on. Snopes reported on it, but used only a briefing given by Paul Bremer in Oct. for confirmation. Here is the link to the Provisional Authority website in which you can find most of these items: http://www.cpa-iraq.org/

Another version of this message came out in 2004. Most versions claim that it was written by a Ray Reynolds and that he was on his way back to Baghdad after a furlough. It eliminates all the pro-Bush information and keeps some, but not all the claims from the Coalition. After being re-worded, some of our troops were again encouraged to send this out, but the version that has stuck is the Ray Reynolds version. He really did send it out, but he did not write that he was headed back to Baghdad, since he was actually headed back to Kuwait. The most likely explanation is that one of his fellows who also sent it out changed this item but forgot to change the name. This version is also shown below.

ORIGINAL MESSAGE (2003)

Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1...
.. the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
.. over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
.. nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
.. the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
.. on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts - exceeding the prewar average.

. all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
.. by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than scheduled.
.. teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
.. all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
.. doctors salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
.. pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
.. the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq's children.
.. a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.
.. we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.
.. there are 4,900 full-service telephone connections. We expect 50,000 by year-end.
.. the wheels of commerce are turning. From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.
.. 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.

.. Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.
.. the central bank is fully independent.
.. Iraq has one of the worlds most growth-oriented investment and banking laws.
.. Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
.. satellite TV dishes are legal.
.. foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for minders and other government spies.
.. there is no Ministry of Information.
.. there are more than 170 newspapers.
.. you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.
.. foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.
.. a nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial or executive - of a representative government, now does.
... in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils. Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.
.. today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
.. 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.

.. the Iraqi government regularly participates in international events. Since July the Iraqi government has been represented in over two dozen international meetings, including those of the UN General Assembly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Conference Summit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.
.. Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.
.. for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.
.. the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.
.. Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.
.. children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.
.. political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.
.. millions of longsuffering Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.

.. Saudis will hold municipal elections.
.. Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.
.. Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.
.. the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian — a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.
.. Saddam is gone.
.. Iraq is free.
.. President Bush has not faltered or failed.
.. Yet, little or none of this information has been published by the Press corps that prides itself on bring you all the news that's important.

Iraq under US lead control has come further in six months than Germany did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII. Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's, and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared.

It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let alone attempt to build something else in its place.

Now, take into account that almost every Democrat leader in the House and Senate has fought President Bush on every aspect of his handling of this country's war and the post-war reconstruction; and that they continue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this conflict has been a failure.

Taking everything into consideration, even the unfortunate loss of our sons and daughters in this conflict, do you think anyone else in the world could have accomplished as much as the United States and the Bush administration in so short a period of time?

ORIGINAL MESSAGE (2004 Version)

This is a letter from Ray Reynolds, a medic in the Iowa Army National Guard, serving in Iraq:

As I head off to Baghdad for the final weeks of my stay in Iraq, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who did not believe the media. They have done a very poor job of covering everything that has happened. I am sorry that I have not been able to visit all of you during my two week leave back home. And just so you can rest at night knowing something is happening in Iraq that is noteworthy, I thought I would pass this on to you. This is the list of things that has happened in Iraq recently:

(Please share it with your friends and compare it to the version that your paper is producing.)

• Over 400,000 kids have up-to-date immunizations.
• School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.
• Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons stored there so education can occur.
• The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so grain can be off-loaded from ships faster.
• The country had its first 2 billion barrel export of oil in August.
• Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.
• The country now receives 2 times the electrical power it did before the war.
• 100% of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the war.
• Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.
• Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.
• Over 60,000 police are patrolling the streets.
• Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.
• Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with US soldiers.
• Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever.
• Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.
• An interim constitution has been signed.
• Girls are allowed to attend school.
• Textbooks that don't mention Saddam are in the schools for the first time in 30 years.

Don't believe for one second that these people do not want us there. I have met many, many people from Iraq that want us there, and in a bad way. They say they will never see the freedoms we talk about but they hope their children will. We are doing a good job in Iraq and I challenge anyone, anywhere to dispute me on these facts. So If you happen to run into John Kerry, be sure to give him my email address and send him to Denison, Iowa. This soldier will set him straight. If you are like me and very disgusted with how this period of rebuilding has been portrayed, e-mail this to a friend and let them know there are good things happening.

Ray Reynolds, SFC
Iowa Army National Guard
234th Signal Battalion"

Um, I wasn't saying you were pro-choice. I was saying you were anti-choice. You see, I think that a woman's life is worth more than an embryo's. If a fertility clinic is burning to the ground, and I can only rescue one thing, I save the woman, not the petri dish with 1,000 embryos. What do you save?

I don't know why you were sending me links to Saddam's crimes, as I already know about them. As for the other links, they are either right-wing propagandists (e.g., national review, worldnetdaily, weekly standard, washington "moonie" times, and techcentralstation is a site put together by LOBBYISTS for crying out loud!) or cherry-picked by you. Your "truthminers" site is a another partisan site, and your IANG letter sounds so much like a fake it requires supplementary explanation.

If you want to know what life is like in Iraq, read the BBC's site in detail:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2005/day_in_iraq/default.stm

Or read Nick Watt's report at ABC:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=590414&page=1

Or Johns Hopkins Study of civilian deaths entitled "Iraqi Civilian Deaths Increase Dramatically After Invasion":
http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/PR_2004/Burnham_Iraq.html
(Oh, sorry, that was science again.)

As long as heavily-armed American troops aren't safe on Iraqi streets, I don't think you can compare Iraq to postwar Germany or Japan. Crime, including kidnapping, murder and rape, is rampant in Iraq, and that's not even the insurgency. Just this week, al-Qaeda is said to have taken over a town near the Syrian border, killing all government employees except doctors and teachers. Why? NOT ENOUGH TROOPS!

In the coming years, thousands of newly-recruited, battle-hardened insurgents, trained in actual urban combat, will seep out of Iraq and into the cities of other nations. Even Rumsfeld is concerned about this:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/executive/rumsfeld-memo.htm

Nice evasive move from theology to politics, BTW.

Wow, Keith. I think that any energy concerns you might have this winter might be ameliorated by this thread. It is definitely generating more heat than light.

As long as we are quoting Bible verses:

"When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, But he who restrains his lips is wise." --Proverbs 10:19

David, excellent.

DL,
Nice try...but shooting the messenger does not change the message.
I would hardly call massgraves.info a right wing site. Once again you didn't even research the topic. Oh I forgot...science asbsolutists don't have to do research..you just proclaim your truth and the facts be damned. Now you know why even scientists don't respect research anymore. Because they can't get the bias out of the results. I guess you just dismiss the Thomas, CNN and BBC links as rightwing fanatics also.
DL, you have become a caricature.

Um, I wasn't saying you were pro-choice. I was saying you were anti-choice. You see, I think that a woman's life is worth more than an embryo's. If a fertility clinic is burning to the ground, and I can only rescue one thing, I save the woman, not the petri dish with 1,000 embryos. What do you save?

What silliness...Perhaps you should rename yourself doctor god...
Well, you have finally slid into irrelavance with me on this topic. Oppositionalism is not debate. You use it just to feed your ego. Like tim, I have too much to do than to have to repeat the obvious to you over and over. I grow tired of slicing you up. Unless you have something else new to add, I've got better things to do with my time. Good luck with school.

David,
Try this one...
Prov 12:1

B

Wow, Keith. I think that any energy concerns you might have this winter might be ameliorated by this thread. It is definitely generating more heat than light. As long as we are quoting Bible verses: "When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, But he who restrains his lips is wise." --Proverbs 10:19

That's one of the most self-righteous posts I've ever seen.

If you want to jump in, then make a point. Sniping and leaving is not edifying.

There is nothing wrong or un-Christian with being angered and viscerally responding to fools (and I use this as a Biblical reference - not "name calling") who deceive others with the semblance of knowledge but who harbor only the intent to justify their own will.

We are called to challenge such people and make a ready defense. We are not called to do so timidly, as though the justification were in doubt or we desired the approval of those who make such contentions.

Doctorlogic:

According to you, the statement "God exists." is nonsensical because it cannot be proven empiracally.
Using that logic, your belief that "God does not exist." is also nonsensical.

In high school physics it is taught that a statement that cannot be proven or disproven by experiment is not a scientific statement, although is still can be sensical in areas other than science.

Based on that, you have NO scientific reasons behind your argument, because you base yourself entirely in science, yet there is no experiment you can do to prove that God does not exist.

Please join the rest of us in acknowledging God’s existence.

A WELS member

I realize I'm butting into this convo rather late, but I'm having trouble understanding why this argument is taking place.

As I understand it, science has been always devoted to explaining what we can without invoking the supernatural. It can only explain things that can be empirically determined, because that is it's purpose. I STRONGLY object to the statement that science is where all our knowledge and understanding comes from. It is certainly where all our empirically verified knowledge comes from, but then that's a silly statement. That's like saying cake is cake.

But if you take science as the ONLY thing we can know with any reasonable certainty (as DL obviously did), then of course he can't acknowledge anything that can't be empirically be tested. Therefore he can't acknowledge God, hence the reason for the argument.

Trying to envision situations where God can be empirically tested in a lab would produce no fruit either. God is supernatural by nature (haha, note the weirdness of what I just said) and is therefore unexplainable by science. If science is the only thing we can know then we can't know God.

I think it's important to see here that the two worldviews are separated by assumptions that we start off with. And if we could magically switch people's assumptions then the argument would go much differently.

Dan,

I think it's important to see here that the two worldviews are separated by assumptions that we start off with. And if we could magically switch people's assumptions then the argument would go much differently.

Dan - regardless of where you start, we are glad to have you.

Also, while I think that your comments have a lot of sense, I hope that investigating the discourse will show what we are trying to accomplish. The course of the argument to date has been to show that there are some assumptions that cannot be held arbitrarily. They are only justified by the belief in the existence of God and the God of Scritpture are that.

You can't just start from any assumptions. Assumptions fall apart when confronting reality unless those assumptions are true.

You can't just start from any assumptions. Assumptions fall apart when confronting reality unless those assumptions are true.

Given perfect knowledge, this is true. However as human beings we are not always rational, and our presuppositions and the means we have to test these assumptions are flawed. "We see through a glass but darkly." Can you truly say that if your life had started in a different manner and you somehow came to accept the presupposition that God does not exist, that you would experimentally and experientially come to the conclusion that you were wrong, and come to accept Christ on your own? I wish it were so, but I cannot see it.

What exactly can we point out to "rational" man that will lead him to question his assumptions? We cannot call his eternal state into question, because he cannot verify the existence of life after death empirically. Also, to him all our experiential knowledge of God is foolishness because he has not had the same experience, and it is trivial to him to explain our experience through random convergences and abnormal psychology.

I don't know what I'm reaching for, but I guess what I'm missing is where any argument we could raise would affect an aetheist. Not that I'm taking anyone to task for their arguments. I think many of them are sound and worth considering, for mental exercise if nothing else. But in the end what does it profit?

Perhaps much. I don't know. It's a serious question.

tim,

I got around to decyphering your explanation of presuppositionalism.

You say:

Finally, there is Prop. 3. Prop. 3 is that the assumptions are justified because they are consistent with the existence of an infinite Being with particular properties.

Go ahead and try to define these properties. I expect you will find that the definitions are meaningless because they use verbs defined in logical or physical space (e.g., to create, to design, to guarantee, etc.). What could it possibly mean to create a universe in the absence of time or anything else? It couldn't mean anything because creation is a spacetime phenomenon. The word guarantee assumes logic or causality. And so on. For God to be the subject of wordly propositions, God would have to exist in some sort of exo-universe subject to its own physical laws, in which case, God would be a physical alien (and you would be back to square one). If you can't define these terms, you don't have rational justification.

You probably feel it is beneath you to describe such Godly properties, so don't feel obliged. I don't think they would be remotely relevant anyway.

Quoting you:

The premise of presuppositionalism is that the conjectures are not justifiably extensible from a submodel, m, to the full model M, without an inter-subjective bridge.

Presumably, God is the bridge of which you speak. However, you have yet to describe how this bridge actually works. Until you can do that, your God is just a synonym for the irrelevant assumption at hand.

The reason for this is that A makes an observation (O) and after some set of observations (Oi) he or she can create a predictor (X) that anticipates future observations (Of). Unfortunately, A cannot hold X unless the observations (Oi) are ENTIRELY sufficient to imply X.

Are you saying that all of the physics I know from my own experiments could be a subjective illusion? And that without God, I could never justify the claim that other scientists are also looking at the same reality?

But you have already stated that induction is assumed. So you seem to be conceding that I can have reliable knowledge of my own illusion. This is borne out by my subjective observation that science works wonders. So why do I need anything more? I can never know the difference between my own illusion and reality (between m and M), anyway. In my book, that makes M meaningless as a distinct entity from m.

Your entire argument is based on knowing the difference between m and M, when you already concede that no experiment could ever tell the difference. In other words, this is a non-problem. M does not exist separately from m because it has no actual empirical attributes distinct from m.

I expect that if I point out that there are no practical situations in which your claims make any difference, you would say that this is irrelevant to epistemic justification (utility ~= necessity). Yet, you accuse the atheistic worldview of being insufficient. But for what? There is nothing experiential (or computational) for which the atheistic view is insufficient. It is only insufficient for the purposes of believing in the supernatural, which of course was the entire purpose of your exercise in the first place.

I see no point in responding because you still have not satisfied the earlier challenge:

Following this post, I have no intention of replying to future posts unless you can justify in some novel way your logical positivism. It is the crux of every post that you make and nearly all in the philosophical community would consider it bereft of credibility, so I will await a decent defense of it. Once it is clear your critical view has a leg to stand on, I’ll be happy to clarify remaining issues with the formulation (or really just sketch) of the presuppositional argument provided above.

Still waiting...

<PS - the response to your concerns are easy and already exist in sources I have cited along the way, but I'm not going to explicate them until you show a concern for self-consistency>

I expect you will find that the definitions are meaningless because they use verbs defined in logical or physical space (e.g., to create, to design, to guarantee, etc.). What could it possibly mean to create a universe in the absence of time or anything else?

I will try to explain in the classical understanding of philosophers like Augustine:

This is undoubtedly a limitation of our perspective. From our perspective, which has time as an underlying principle, the universe was created. It had a beginning. If I were to subtract a certain number of seconds from the current time, I would eventually reach a point of "creation". It is not clear under this view whether time then is a thing in and of itself, or whether it only has meaning from the perspective of a created being

In God's perspective, it would have to be different. Since according to our understanding of scripture time has no meaning to God. The understanding that at a certain point in time God decided to create the universe is therefore flawed. It would be more accurate to say that God causes the universe to be. From his perspective he has always caused it to be and will forever cause it (notice in our language it is hard to describe something without the concept of time). C.S. Lewis described it to be like a book being held up by a table. The book's position and stability depends on the force of gravity holding it to the table. If you were to take the table away, the book would fall. But if you took the book away, the table would remain unchanged.

So it is with the universe. It is held and sustained forever by God. God does not depend on the universe's existence but the universe does depend on God. This is example is limited of course because a table cannot cause a book to be. God can cause a universe however.

Therefore when we speak of creation, we speak of causality. The concept of creation is a distortion of our own limited perspective.

Given perfect knowledge, this is true. However as human beings we are not always rational, and our presuppositions and the means we have to test these assumptions are flawed. "We see through a glass but darkly." Can you truly say that if your life had started in a different manner and you somehow came to accept the presupposition that God does not exist, that you would experimentally and experientially come to the conclusion that you were wrong, and come to accept Christ on your own? I wish it were so, but I cannot see it.

First, I see the point you are making, but I think it is different than the issue of apologetics that has been on display. Whether or not the fallen state of self-deception can be overcome without some spiritual intervention is a valid theological point. At the same time, it is also a valid theological point that Scripture holds man accountable for not just acknowledging God but also gloryfying Him as God.

To that end, I would say that while I have no confidence in what my attitude would have been without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, it is non-the-less true that His hand is undeniable in it. The point of the presuppositional argument is that the very reason we engage in certain activities is a faith in a Model of the world that is only justified ontologically and epistemologically by God's existence.

In any case, I think that, once again, all assumptions are not equal. Those that aren't true will prove inconsistent with the world - either experimentally, logically, or inferentially.

To that end, I would say that while I have no confidence in what my attitude would have been without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, it is non-the-less true that His hand is undeniable in it. The point of the presuppositional argument is that the very reason we engage in certain activities is a faith in a Model of the world that is only justified ontologically and epistemologically by God's existence.

Point taken. The purpose is to glorify God then, as is our calling, and letting the Holy Spirit do the work of conviction. I can accept that.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=charlatan

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=charlatan

Coward.

30 somethings should have better things to do than wreck the lives and careers of young people with promise through manipulation and there own vindictiveness.

You will be judged.
http://bible.cc/matthew/18-6.htm

But these men say evil about such things as they have no knowledge of; and the things of which they have natural knowledge, like beasts without reason, are the cause of their destruction. Woe to them! For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in Korah's rebellion. These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.About these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
These are murmurers and complainers, walking after their lusts (and their mouth speaks proud things), showing respect of persons to gain advantage. But you, beloved, remember the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you that "In the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts. These are they who cause divisions, and are sensual, not having the Spirit But you, beloved, keep building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

Jude 1:13-21

I just read Mere Christianity, and I seem to recall the chapter on forgiveness. Seems that fundamental premise (forgiveness) of Christ's (God's) message has been lost by the 'Christian' parties here.
Much more can be accomplished through NOT passing judgement and rather encouraging constructive dialogue.
I mean, I know the devil hates to be prodded and chided, but you guys are above that, right?
The truth should be the GOAL, no? Over rhetoric?

On a worldly note, one should be mindful and wary of cornering those who do not fit ones myopic views. In fact, they may do themselves a service by recalling that such acts in nature are met with instant and severe reprisal.

Heather,
I recommend that you read A W Pink's "The
Sovereignty of God", You can download it online at

http://grace-for-today.com/pink.htm

Or Charles Spurgeons numerous sermons. I particularly recommend his "An Earnest Warning Against Lukewarmness". Any of John Bunyan's or Thomas Watson's efforts are an excellent starting points. "The Valley of Vision" a collection of Puritan prayers is a superb read.

They will put into perspective part of the past posts without getting into the more technical aspects of the philosophical and logical approaches.

To understand the goal of the appologist I believe Pink said it best in his "True Christian Love"..excerpted below:

"We must be careful not to confuse human sentimentality, carnal pleasantries, human amiability and affability with true spiritual love. The love God commands, first to Himself and then to others, is not human love. It is not the indulgent, self-seeking love which is in us by nature. If we indulgently allow our children to grow up with little or, no Scriptural discipline, Proverbs plainly says we do not love them, regardless of the human sentimentality and affection we may feel for them. Love is not a sentimental pampering of one another with a loose indifference as to our walk and obedience before the Lord. Glossing over one another's faults to ingratiate ourselves in their esteem is not spiritual love.

The true nature of Christian love is a righteous principle which seeks the highest good of others. It is a powerful desire to promote their welfare. The exercise of love is to be in strict conformity to the revealed will of God. We must love in the truth. Love among the brethren is far more than an agreeable society where views are the same. It is loving them for what we see of Christ in them, loving them for Christ's sake.

The Lord Jesus Himself is our example. He was not only thoughtful, gentle, self-sacrificing and patient, but He also corrected His mother, used a whip in the Temple, Severely scolded His doubting disciples, and denounced hypocrites. True spiritual love is above all faithful to God and uncompromising towards all that is evil. We cannot declare, 'Peace and Safety' when in reality there is spiritual decay and ruin!"

I really haven't read through this thread so I'll ask for your forgiveness if I didn't get the gist of Dr. Logic's argument, but does it go something like this....

The transcendental argument for God's existence is falsified by the fact that it isn't falsifiable (i.e., it's false because it can't be proven false)?

/dripping sarcasm off

No.

Just wandered in, interesting thread.

Regarding the prayer experiment "Go into a private room..."

Why should one start and end with one specific god? Shouldn't this experiment be done for every god humans have ever believed in from Abaangui to Zibelthiurdos, and see which ones answer? And how do you know the answer actually came from that god?

Chris,

Assuming that you are familiar with the Holy God of the Bible, what other god do you propose to pray to? You could pray to a ham sandwich for all we know, but that's not the discussion here. Your question is a matter of comparative religion. I would be happy to debate whether to pray to God or to some other entity if you will give me the doctrines of the other entity for comparison.

And how do you know the answer actually came from that god?

As Christians, we are taught that in prayer we ask that if it is God's will then His will be done. Since God creates all things, then the outcome of the prayer (which is pre-determined by God's pleasure and plan) will always be in line with His will...no matter whether the outcome is good or not good under human aspect.
All answer to prayer to God is good.

What makes Christianity different from all other religions? It is based on a historical fact, that Christ rose from the dead. We know that is true because we have four written accounts of the story from the time when it happened (Matthew Mark Luke and John) and over 500 eyewitnesses who saw Jesus after he rose from the dead. All other religions are based on a philosophical theory. For example, atheism which theorizes that God does not exist.
Since Christ rose, CHristianity is real and all other religions are false.

a WELS member

I can find well over 1000 eyewitnesses that have seen Elvis after his death also.

"I mean that, for every meaningful proposition about the world, you must be able to state what experiment would prove the proposition to be wrong (if it were, in fact, wrong). This is not self-contradictory."

- this was raised at the top of the page, and I have difficulties with it, though I think I know what was meant. Sadly all these discussions end up revolving around the ambiguity of words.

The word 'meaningful' seems to be an entirely subjective statement in this context. If something is not meaningful, within the contextual definition above it would actually still be able to be true.

The merely scientific and experiment driven method of analysis is by no means all inclusive, nor conclusive.

"you must be able to state what experiment would prove the proposition to be wrong"

Having an experiment which would prove falsehood does not induce truth. There is a range in the middle which is an area of uncertainty, in which possibility is left.

Just about everything is possible. Personal experience, while not being able to prove anything, is something an individual needs to decide if he can trust to build his premises upon.