Underlying Philosophy

So Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists etc. etc. would basically agree with you if only they could see the light of Christianity?Confirmation bias run riot?I think so.

This appears to be a circular argument, and an unwarranted one at that. You basically seem to be saying that in order to determine if a god exists or not, you have to first come to a conclusion if a god exists or not.I don't think that you have established that a metaphysical decision about the existence of a god is required in order to investigate the concept. You have to assume the existence of an outside and trees before you can determine the best method of feeling them, but assuming the existence of a god is not required before you can investigate that question.You would have to assume that existence is a separate state from non-existence, and that observation is a reasonable method to determine if things exist. But what I don't see is any reason to think that the discovery of a god's existence from an atheistic perspective is going to fundamentally alter our concept of what existence entails. And the point everyone else is trying to make is that your claim is astonishingly ignorant, and simply not true. Both on the count of other world views lacking explanations, and the Christian world view providing them. And when you are asked why murder is wrong, you will answer "Because God said so." And when asked why what God says is wrong should be considered immoral, you will say "Because God said so." You don't have an infinite regress so much as mental constipation.

How can one suppress something that is created from human imagination? Why would the Xtian worldview be any more real that the Muslem, Hindu, or any other religious belief? Your statement reminds me of my first religious indoctrination, 57 years ago, "This is the absolute truth, you cannot question it."

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

So "have your conclusions ready before you begin your analysis."Cart before the horse. Sentence before the trial. "Only we are right. All else is wrong."We have heard this all before. Every cult of every sect of every religion ever conceived says the same.
Christians against Jews, Jews against Moslems, Moslems against ... well everyone.
Baptists against Calvinists, Calvinists against Catholics, Catholics against ... well everyone.This is the very orifice from which the foul stench of religious intolerance spews.Your history is one of butchery. And here you perpetuate the bloodlust.Be gone, evil one!

Fair enough. But now you're doing it again, dammit.All the Christian leaders who differ with you also thought that the Bible was their ultimate authority, and could (with just as much justification as you) have said "When you're arguing with me, you're arguing with the Bible". Including people who would have burned you at the stake for your opinions.Now, since you admit your own fallibility, it is not possible for you to know (much less me) when I'm "arguing with the Bible" and when I'm just arguing with you. At best you can sometimes claim that I am arguing with your interpretation of the Bible; just as I would be if I was arguing with another Christian whose views were different from yours.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Imagine how silly you'd think it if a Muslim said to you: There are three things that make this sort of thing silly.(1) The supposition that you know what I'm thinking and that I don't. This is absurd. I can read my mind, you can't. If your philosophy has led you to the conclusion that I am really a devout Christian, then this leads me to the conclusion that your philosophy has made you delusional, to the point where your mind is closed against all the evidence contradicting your belief.I am interested to know how far this delusion extends. For example, do you believe that people were all Christians before Christianity? For the illogic by which you seek to prove this proposition would apply as much to them as to me.(2) The massive anti-logical non sequitur. Even if some proposition is necessary to make sense of the world, it obviously doesn't follow from that that everyone does actually believe it.By analogy, the theory of gravity is necessary to make sense of planetary motion. But it does not follow from this that everyone understands and believes the theory of gravity. Some of them, after all, cannot make sense of planetary motion.In the same way, even if we granted you the unproven and false premise: ... then you would not be justified in jumping to: ... without adding a premise: ... a premise which we know to be false.(3) The fact that you have no proof whatsoever for the premise that you have stated (let alone the one that you haven't).Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No, I think he could give a good and valid conclusion to this line of reasoning, and a fairly obvious one to anyone who has thought about these matters. No, he has not. You are simply hoping that he will, as that will help make your point. Can you tell the difference?"He would reply with...""He has caught himself..."See what you did there? Yes? I'm sorry, PaulK was talking about *minimal* assumptions. Could you perhaps give a definition of this thing you name "God"? It sounds rather un-minimal to me. You mention attributes of this "God", called omnipotence and omniscience. Could you please also provide definitions of these concepts, and perhaps show how they too are "minimal". Both sides? You have introduced this bizarre concept, that sounds awfully complex, called "God", and now you are saying there are two sides defined by belief or non-belief in this "God". Can I come up with "Flibble" and define my own two sides by similar reasoning? Wow, not a lot I can really say to this... yep, pretty much speechless at that.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

But these questions are as relevant to the theist as to the atheist. I've explained this before, but let me spell it out one more time.We both know (do we not?)^* that people hallucinate (as a result of psychosis, drugs, or simple fatigue); that people can suffer from unshakable delusions (paranoia, the idee fixe, de Clrambault's syndrome, Cotard's delusion, Capgras' delusion); that perfectly normal people have innumerable cognitive biases, failures of logic, and are prone to dozens of types of optical illusions; that our memories are faulty and suggestible; and that we can be just plain ignorant of relevant facts which would change our opinions radically if only we were aware of them. You yourself have made some fairly ghastly errors of fact and reasoning on this very thread.Therefore, a theist cannot invoke his God as a guarantor of human reason, because it is not, in fact, guaranteed. (The most we can say on this subject is that if the existence of God would guarantee the correctness of our thinking, then there is no God.)Consider the following. You believe that God exists, and that (for some mysterious reason) God allows madmen to inhabit delusional and hallucinatory worlds of their own. So on what basis could you claim that you yourself are not in such a situation? It's no good appealing to the existence of God as a foundation, because apparently he permits the existence of madmen. So you are thrown back into the same position as an atheist, i.e. an appeal to experience. Only those experiences might themselves be part of your delusions and hallucinations.Which leaves you in the same boat as the rest of us. * Footnote: the fact that some people are delusional is one thing that I can be certain of. The proof is, as we mathematicians say, "by contradiction". For I firmly believe it to be so. So if I was wrong, then there would in fact be at least one delusional person, namely me; and we would have a logical contradiction.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Dr. Adequate, You bring up a very excellent point that I should have brought up myself. If I just make a random statement, you have no way of knowing whether I drew that conclusion from the Bible, or from my own thinking. Ultimately, all I say should have its roots in the Bible, and if I say anything that is inconsistent with the Bible, or that denies the Bible, then you have every right in the world to point out my inconsistency. And you don't necessarily have a good reason to believe that my interpretation of the Bible is any better than another Christian's interpretation, nor would I claim that mine is better. However, another Christian's interpretation is not necessarily my own interpretation. There are most likely cases where some Christian interpreted the Bible better than me, and there are most likely some case where I have interpreted the Bible better.So anyways, my hope is that everything I say on here has its roots in the Bible, and that I say nothing that is inconsistent or that denies the teachings of the Bible itself.But given this particular discussion (of theism vs. atheism), I would be willing to bet that most Christians would not disagree with my particular method of apologetic, one which I believe to be firmly rooted in scripture.I hope this has satisfied your objections.Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.

I'm not so sure of that. Are presuppositionalists in the majority?As for those Christians that are not presuppositionalists, the weaknesses of your mode of apologetics must be as evident to them as they are to me.First, it scarcely seems like apologetics at all. For the purpose of Christian apologetics is to present (what at least superficially could be taken for) a rational defense of the Christian faith. Now, not only do you fall down on the whole "rational" thing, but you seem to put out of bounds any attempt to discuss such essential questions as whether God exists and whether the Bible is reliable, taking them as axiomatic.Now, for whom and from whom does this defend the Christian faith? Not for or from someone like me; no, it defends Christianity for and from you --- it defends it from the possibility that you might start asking awkward questions.But it's never going to convert anyone, because no-one would be willing to enter into your particular brand of circular reasoning unless he was already a Christian. (And, I might add, he would scarcely need to unless he was a Christian worried about the awful possibility of losing his faith.) So although some Christians might comfort themselves with your style of apologetics, I hope that most of them would have more sense than to use it as a tool for evangelizing others.Finally, your method of apologetics is implicitly an admission of the weakness of your own position second only to a signed confession that you're wrong. For it seems to me that if you had any good, or even halfway plausible, arguments for the essential tenets of Christianity, you wouldn't have to construct an entire philosophy just to explain away why you can't produce such arguments and shouldn't try.I disclaim the ability to read your mind, but from the outside it looks as though you have realized that you're never going to come up with any good arguments, that the arguments that you used to think were good (presumably, the ones that made you a Christian in the first place) are in fact worthless ... but that you want to remain a Christian, and you want to go on arguing. Hence presuppositionalist apologetics.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No, wrong. Metaphysics is not reality. By burying your head in metaphysics, you may be talking about reality a lot, but you are also
separating yourself from reality. You are not facing reality, nor are you dealing with reality. In fact, you are burying your head in
metaphysics in order to escape reality and to avoid discussion of reality. Your head is stuck down in your cockpit; pull your head out of
your cockpit and conduct a reality check!Yes, I do realize that that is never going to happen. Because you must avoid facing reality at all costs in order to protect your religious
faith. Seen it countless times before. But reality will still be out there waiting for you. Which means that you must forever guard
yourself against it. And let your mind get increasingly twisted in the process. That is your choice, but if you persist in trying to impose
your madness upon us, we will continue to speak truth to your madness. Heinlein once advised against trying to teach a pig to sing, because
it's futile and it annoys the pig, but sometimes annoying the pig can be its own reward. As I've gathered over the years, a number of the
atheists on this forum used to be in very much the same position as you are now. Regardless of how tightly you try to keep your eyes shut
closed for however long you attempt it, it will still be possible for them to open.So here's a stupid idea for you: Instead of trying to protect your faith by denying and avoiding reality, why not look reality straight in
the face and then try to harmonize your faith with it? The former method leaves your faith vulnerable to reality, whereas the latter method
should strengthen your faith against anything that reality could throw at it. Assuming, of course, that you are able to correct those parts
of your personal theology that are wrong. To give you some perspective, it is creationism's denial of reality that makes it one of the
leading forces in the growth and spread of atheism. OK, your conclusion is not the one suggested by the premises. For one thing, in order to your conclusion to have any possibility of holding,
each and every premise must be true. If even one of them is not true, then your case fails completely. What are the odds of each
and every one of your premises being true? We already know that you don't know any physics, but do you know any math? Specifically,
probability. If you have a chain of independent events, each of which has a probability of happening, then the probability that each and
every one of them happening is equal to the product of all of them. If you have n events and the probability of each is 1/2, then the
probability of each one happening is 1/2ⁿ. And if each event's probability is less than even odds (1/2), then the overall
probability becomes even less.Let's examine your premises more closely, and include some of the hidden intermediate premises that you had overlooked.1. If God is real -- OK, what's "God"? Hey, if there's no definition for that term, then your entire argument is null and void. Since you
will probably continue to avoid meaningful discussion, I will offer two possibilities. One would be your idea of "The God of the Bible".Now, others will have their own ideas of the same, so which one is it? Wikipedia reports about 2.1 billion (an American billion, I assume,
which is 10⁹). So among Christians, there are potentially 2.1 billion different ideas of "The God of the Bible". Though we also
have the Jews, who number somewhere between 11 million and 14 million by various estimates. Even though Muslims believe in the same god and
even though they number about 1.5 billion, I will allow you to exclude them from this count, even though you really should include them.So we have potentially 2.114 billion different ideas of "The God of the Bible". Which one is the correct one? Pick one, any one. What's
the probability of it being the correct one? About 4.73x10^-13, ignoring the choice that each and every one is dead wrong!
(which, interestingly, is the most likely outcome). Allowing for duplication and for many Christians not participating, we could be
extremely generous and give you far greater odds, like about 4.73x10^-8.Of course, there is also the very likely scenario of some supernatural something that would fit the bill of us calling it "God". But since
we have no way to detect the supernatural, to observe the supernatural, to determine anything at all about the supernatural, then what can we
possibly know about this supernatural something that would fit the bill of us calling it "God"? Nothing, nothing whatsoever. So all of our
ideas of "God" are really just made up. And so realistically, the probability of having the right idea of "God" is zero. Zero times
anything is zero, dead impossibility. End of story.So to be inordinantly generous, let's keep this at an artificially high probability of about 4.73x10^-8.2. Hidden premise: which god? -- Let's face it, we have had a multitude of gods throughout history and even prehistory. How many? Who
knows? I would guess that a million would be a very conservative guess. This is one of the critical weaknesses of the infamous Pascal
Wager, which assigns a 50% probability of God existing, whereas the probability of the god he had in mind existing is far, far less. Indeed,
if we assume one million possible gods and a 50% chance that no god exists, then the possibility of your god existing would be 1:2,000,000.To be exceptionally fair (not that that has ever worked out for me; believe me, I've been divorced -- if you are going through that yourself,
given that it happens to Christians a lot more than it does to atheists, I could offer you some critical practical advice), let's leave your
god's probability at 1:1,000,000 (10^-6).3. and if He is then omnipotent and omniscient -- Hmm. What if this "God" person isn't? I vaguely remember from my young childhood (about
50 years ago) a Superman comic in which two Supermen somehow had come into existence -- it might even have been the first time Bizarro was
created -- and the situation needed to be rectified. So they dredged up some old philosophical problem of what happens when an irresistible
force meets an unmovable object, and it worked. Well, philosophy does have some useful purpose after all, that of resolving comic book
plots.Now, of course, you are assuming that it's your god that we're talking about. But there's only about 1 chance in one million (by
extremely generous estimate; don't forget to thank me for my exceptional generosity, but my ex has taught me to be a pessimist (the pessimist
must be the happiest person; 99.99% of the time he's right and 0.001% of the time he's pleasantly surprised). What if the True God is one
who is not omnipotent and omniscient? For one thing, this premise of yours then becomes -- not necessarily superfluous, but rather
over-specific. The True God, if any, is the True God, period! If that "True God" is also omnipotent and omniscient, then OK, but if not,
then WTF?This premise is useless! Please let's just eliminate it altogether. Now, if you choose to object, then that would be fine by me, because
that would lower the overall probability of your conclusion being correct. 4.73x10^-17.4. and if he created this earth -- This is also an odd one. Did this "God" person thingee also create the earth? Again, since you are
obviously speaking only of your own particular god, for whom there is only an exceptionally generous one in a million chance, what can we say
about the vast majority of the other gods? How many of them are creator gods?Again, I must be very generous and allow for 1-1,000th of the gods to be creators of the world. Good thing I'm not in business, because I
keep giving away the store! OK? 1/1000. Way too generous!5. and if the Bible then be true -- ho, boy! Now this one is a real problem. We have got to break this one down! But it's not an easy one!
Which Bible are you talking about? Which translation? Constructed from which source documents?sac, do you know any Greek? Koine Greek, which is the common Greek in which the New Testament was written (well, barring those segments also
written in Aramaic). Have you ever seen a Metzger New Testament? That was our text in our Greek class and was a translator's bible. Each
verse had its alternative wordings and was heavily annotated concerning which manuscripts and papyrii each wording came from. Are you
familiar with Luke 2:14? In some sources, it's "eudoxia" and in others it's "eudoxias", the genitive. So is it "Peace on earth, goodwill
towards men"?, or "Peace on earth among men of goodwill", or even "Peace on earth among men with whom God is pleased"? All depends on that
final sigma. Which is it? And while you're at it, is it the short or long ending of Mark that applies? And if you have absolutely no idea
what I'm talking about, then why not?On one dance cruise, I had a very odd conversation with my cabin-mate. We were watching "The Da Vinci Code" on ship's TV and I verified the
film's recount of the Council of Nicea. He had been raised a 7th-Day Adventist. He wasn't active, but he still held to what he had been
taught as a child (remember those schoolchildren in Sweden?). The Greek New Testament is the original text and the Greek and Aramaic texts
that had contributed to it are even more original. The Authorized King James translation (KJV, circa 1600) is just that, authorized
by the Crown, but otherwise not necessarily any more authentic than the originals. He had been taught that the KJV was the only
authoritative Bible, period. In my mind, the each subsequent version could only be a further corruption of the previous versions, so the
idea that a 1600-year-old corruption of a long line of corruptions being considered more authentic than the originals was totally mind-
blowing, in the extreme eye-rolling sense. It still makes absolutely no sense to me, but I do recognize it as being a case of one's beliefs
superceding all logic. While that may be one individual's personal perrogative, it in no way supports any argument he may advance to try to
convince others.OK, here's the big problem. The Bible was written by Men. It is not of divine origin. You seem to believe that the Bible is of divine
origin, but it clearly is not. So then, what probability are we supposed to grant this canard? One in a million? Nowhere near that! But
just to keep this going, I will grant you 1 on a million.OK, what's the probability? Again, these are incredibly generous probabilities, several orders of magnitude too generous:4.73x10^-8 * 10^-6 * 1/1000 * 1/1000000
4.73x10^-8 * 10^-6 * 10^-3 * 10^-64.73x10^(-8-6-3-6)
4.73x10^(-23)Now, I seem to recall that 10^-27 was supposed to be considered to be virtually impossible. The extremely overoptimistic estimate
is very close to impossible, so the more realistic figure must be firmly within that range of probabilities.So then, sac, the probability of your scenario is, well, virtually impossible. Sorry, but that's how your own scenario plays out. Uh, I'm sorry, but ... huh???? The Christian worldview is supposed to better describe how we act? Well, if you have such a superior
description, why do you keep getting it completely wrong?OK, let's be honest here. Back in the mid-1960's, I came to realize that what the Bible was literally saying was something that I just
simply could not believe. Navely, I believed that I was supposed to believe what the Bible literally said, but what it literally said was
just simply not true. It was at that point that I realized that I could not be a Christian and I simply left.OK, let's review what I had given you before. What are the presuppositions of atheists? Well, many, if not most, atheists started out
believing that God existed, etc. But then they found that those presuppositions about the existence of "God" just simply did not work, then
they became atheists. We covered this before. Why haven't you learned from it yet? Sorry, but you are lying. We have explained it to you repeatedly. In detail. It is your own inability to deal with reality that is the
problem.Edited by dwise1, : HTML clean-up. Added one sentence, removed one other, and modified one other.

But you didn't. It was left up to me, an atheist, to point out this obvious fact.When you say that you are speaking for God and/or the Bible, the most you can honestly say is that you hope that you're speaking for God. Just as all the people who would have burned you at the stake for your theology would have hoped, indeed firmly believed, that they were acting on God's behalf.I am baffled as to how I can choose between you. But I am also baffled as to how you can choose between the various religious sects.Sincerity, clearly, is not enough. The 9/11 bombers were so sincere in their beliefs that they gave their lives for their beliefs. You, I note, haven't done so.But what can you really say about them? You admit that your opinions about God are fallible. Good for you. But then on what can you base your morality?As with epistemology, it's no use just invoking the existence of God, because if he exists, he clearly allows people to be evil. Since he does so, you might yourself be thoroughly evil but also thoroughly confused about the difference between right and wrong, such that you are deluded into thinking that you are good. Just as Hitler thought that he was good, and Stalin thought that he was good.The same problem applies to morality as it does to epistemology. You may assert that God exists, but you must also agree that God permits people --- even theists --- to have disgusting and ridiculous ideas about the difference between right and wrong. In which case you might be in the same position.In which case you have no objective standard for telling good from evil.In which case, as with epistemology, you're in the same boat as the rest of us.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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So you admit that some metaphysical assumptions must be made before producing an epistemology? Why do you then condemn my metaphysical beliefs?

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I admitted no such thing. And even if I did it would in no way exempt your incoherent mess of a worldview from criticism.

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I am placing reality (metaphysics) before epistemology, which is exactly what you said I should do. Right?

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No, it is not what I said that you should do. In fact I said that it is something that cannot be done. What you wish to do is not to place reality before epistemology, it is to place your beliefs before truth.

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You admitted that one must have basic metaphysical beliefs (beliefs about reality) before an epistemological method can be formed.

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No, I did not.

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For example, suppose you said "the best way to find out what a tree feels like is to go outside and touch it". This is, of course, a true statement. But it does have an underlying metaphysical belief, one that must be assumed (whether it be consciously or sub-consciously) before you can confidently go outside and touch the tree - that you can go outside and touch the tree.

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Is that necessarily an assumption, though ? It seems to me that that would be a conclusion based on past experience.

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Another metaphysical question is "is God real? If so, what is his nature?". The reason the answer to this question is so important is because of this: if God is real, and if He is then omnipotent and omniscient, and if he created this earth, and if the Bible then be true, all of our beliefs will be radically influenced by our belief or non-belief in God. This is why one must presume God or no god as a metaphysical belief.

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Of course this is just one more example of the false dogma of presuppositionalism. All it shows is that presuppositionalists recognise the fact that belief in God is irrational. That is why they claim that it must be assumed in advance.

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Some people will say though, that they take a "neutral" stance by weighing the evidence for both sides. However, this makes God out to be a minor ethical belief, because note that the person was making his epistemological assumptions before taking God into account. If one takes this outlook (of placing knowing before God), they can come to very wrong conclusions.

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I find it amazing that you think that beleiving in the existence of God has an ethical component at all. However if the existence of God truly is an important question we do it no justice by making up silly excuses to avoid rational examination.

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However, the point I have been trying to make is that everyone, whether they admit it or not, is suppressing the fact that they believe in God, because no worldview can account for everything we do and the way that we act other than the Christian worldview.

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You forget that I identified you as a presuppositionalist early on in the discussion, so of course I know that you were going to parrot the usual falsehoods of that movement. And, of course, I have already demonstrated it's falsity with regard to logic.And I will remind you that simply attacking other peoples views is inadequate. First you must demonstrate that your worldview - which is not THE Christian worldview and seems to me to not even be A Christian worldview - can adequately address the problems you claim other worldviews have. Then you have to demonstrate that no other worldview could do so. Which, of course, you can't do. You've got no argument, just assertions that you can't back up.

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But before I go any further with discussing this with you, I need to find out what exactly you do believe about the Genesis account of Creation, what you believe about how the evolutionary time scale fits into the Genesis time scale, or if you believe Genesis 1-3 is allegorical, or whatever.

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There are greatly varying views amongst theistic evolutionists, so before I present my arguments, I need you to tell me what you believe.

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I believe that the information passed down from moses was kept in about as decent order as could be from verbal communications to written. and that If God, whom i believe did, relay the information; that the ears hearing it understood little, and so as much as could be understood for that time was told. This of course was done under an old covenant. The new covenant did not need the information now, since it will be understood later, and revealed to those who need know individually as with their relationship with God is and by what is Good for God and is good for the man.to put it easier: you can't teach a dog to rebuild a 350 four bolt main, but you can teach it to fetch a wrench.God and science are not in conflict, accept in the minds of men. for all true science speaks for God, since all that is has come from him. and is set by his order.

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keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

Except that all the evidence supports gods as being the products of the minds of men and none of the evidence supports the actual existence of gods. No. All true science points towards the Immaterial Pink Unicorn as the supreme trickster and practical-joke-inspirer-of false gods-for-a-laugh.You have been duped.