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Author Topic:   Darwinism, education, materialism's fatal flaw
nator
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 196 of 278 (174332)
01-06-2005 7:57 AM
Reply to: Message 194 by dshortt
01-06-2005 6:15 AM


Re: Epistemology and the reliability of human reason
So, am I to assume that you are going to ignore my posts now?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 194 by dshortt, posted 01-06-2005 6:15 AM dshortt has not replied

  
dshortt
Inactive Member


Message 197 of 278 (174408)
01-06-2005 11:56 AM
Reply to: Message 195 by PaulK
01-06-2005 6:47 AM


Re: Epistemology and the reliability of human reason
Hey Paul,
You are right except that my point all along has been that theistic philosophy, if true, better supports the notion that man is a reasonable creature. Reason pre-existing the universe is a better starting point to conduct epistemology than "the reasoning creature one day began to reason and found that his reason was reasonable."
I don't deny that it must be shown elswhere whether theistic philosophy is true. And maybe it can't be shown emphatically, but at the end of the day, I think, as does now Antony Flew, that the evidence from the universe, biology, philosophy, and history, taken as a whole supports theistic philosophy very well. I am not trying to open a whole new can of worms here, I am still trying to wind down and prepare for another debate. But I hope you see that this is one cog in the wheel of theistic philosophy, the fact that if true, man can be assured of an Ultimate Reason which supports epistemology and which, hopefully, we can reason our way back to.
Dennis

This message is a reply to:
 Message 195 by PaulK, posted 01-06-2005 6:47 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 198 by crashfrog, posted 01-06-2005 12:06 PM dshortt has replied
 Message 199 by PaulK, posted 01-06-2005 2:39 PM dshortt has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 198 of 278 (174414)
01-06-2005 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 197 by dshortt
01-06-2005 11:56 AM


I think, as does now Antony Flew, that the evidence from the universe, biology, philosophy, and history, taken as a whole supports theistic philosophy very well.
Did you not get the memo? That story was a hoax. Flew has never recanted his deism.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 197 by dshortt, posted 01-06-2005 11:56 AM dshortt has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 200 by dshortt, posted 01-06-2005 8:43 PM crashfrog has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 199 of 278 (174463)
01-06-2005 2:39 PM
Reply to: Message 197 by dshortt
01-06-2005 11:56 AM


Re: Epistemology and the reliability of human reason
I am afraid that you still don't understand the actual problem. NEITHER of the starting points you suggest are valid starting points for epistemology - which means that neither is significantly better than the other. And to the best of my knowledge nobody uses "The reasoning creature one day began to reason and found that his reason was reasonable." as a starting point for epistemology at all - which makes it something of a strawman.
I've already offered a starting point for epistemology and offered an argument as to why it is the only possible starting point. If you want to offer an alternative then you do need to address that argument with the purpose of epistemology in mind.
Unfortunately instead of actually dealing with that issue you are confusing premises with conclusions, ontology with epistemology and equating convenience with evidence. That does not make for sound reasoning or a valid epistemology.

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dshortt
Inactive Member


Message 200 of 278 (174538)
01-06-2005 8:43 PM
Reply to: Message 198 by crashfrog
01-06-2005 12:06 PM


Well then I don't know who is lying to who, but I have a copy of a rather lengthy interview between Gary Habermas and Mr. Flew in which he emphactically DOES embrace theism, but not any of the revelatory brands. Check out Access denied and tell me what you think.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 198 by crashfrog, posted 01-06-2005 12:06 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 201 by crashfrog, posted 01-07-2005 12:38 AM dshortt has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 201 of 278 (174569)
01-07-2005 12:38 AM
Reply to: Message 200 by dshortt
01-06-2005 8:43 PM


Well then I don't know who is lying to who, but I have a copy of a rather lengthy interview between Gary Habermas and Mr. Flew in which he emphactically DOES embrace theism, but not any of the revelatory brands.
Did you miss this part of the interview?
quote:
HABERMAS: Once you mentioned to me that your view might be called Deism. Do you think that would be a fair designation?
FLEW: Yes, absolutely right.
He's never identified as an atheist, to my knowledge, despite rumors to the contrary. I don't think anybody's lying to anybody here, except for whoever told you he was an atheist.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 200 by dshortt, posted 01-06-2005 8:43 PM dshortt has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 202 by dshortt, posted 01-07-2005 5:13 AM crashfrog has replied

  
dshortt
Inactive Member


Message 202 of 278 (174592)
01-07-2005 5:13 AM
Reply to: Message 201 by crashfrog
01-07-2005 12:38 AM


Title of the article:
"My Pilgramage from Atheism to Theism"
Subtitle:
"An Exclusive Interview with Former British Atheist Professor Antony Flew"
Bio:
"Prof Antony Flew, 81 years old, is a legendary British philosopher and atheist and has been an icon and champion for unbelievers for decades. His change of mind is significant news, not only about his personal journey, but also about the persuasive power of the arguments modern theists have been using to challenge atheistic naturalism."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 201 by crashfrog, posted 01-07-2005 12:38 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 207 by crashfrog, posted 01-07-2005 11:33 AM dshortt has replied

  
dshortt
Inactive Member


Message 203 of 278 (174603)
01-07-2005 6:00 AM
Reply to: Message 193 by PaulK
01-05-2005 7:45 PM


Re: Epistemology and the reliability of human reason
Hey Paul,
I must confess and apologize; I read this message in a hurry and cut almost immediately to the summary, took that to be the gist and began my reply.
You have been a gentlemen and have produced well thought out arguments and deserve better. Please accept my apology. Now you say:
quote:
It has been suggested that if we make an assumption or set of assumptions that entails the conclusion that human reason is reliable then that is better than my suggestion that we shoudd start with th pragmatic assumption that our thinkign is (adequately) reliable.
I must call you on misrepresenting my position here, slightly. Let me just grant you this whole post except, what I have been saying, is once man reasons his way to the ontological reality "Ultimate reason exists, and I am made in it's image", then from that point we are relieved of the burden of making the assumption "reason is reasonable" as the first premise to epistemology. Now our first premise would become "Ultimate reason exists, we are made in it's image, and through epistemology we can find what is ultimatly reasonable." We have reasoned our way to a better support for conducting epistemology. If the ontological reality called "Ultimate Reason" doesn't exist, we are stuck making the assumption "reason is reasonable" and can never do better.
quote:
Yet to do so is simply going back to the pragmatic assumption that we are supposedly replacing. And if we assume the validity of any human reasoning at all then - by definition - it must include at least the minimal subset I spoke of earlier. Yet it is not possible to show that the entailment holds without, at a minimum, assuming deductive logic. Worse, deductive logic is not adequate to show that the assumptions are likely true. Deductive logic has the major limitation that it can only draw out what is implicit in the premises. Actual justification of the premises must go beyond deductive logic.
Thus it is inescapable that some form of human reasoning must be pregmatically assumed to be valid. Any attempt to evade that inevitably relies on making the very assumption that it is intended to avoid.
Perhaps you are right, but let me try a scenario on you. You mentioned earlier a possibility of man travelling to another universe someday. Now it is thought, as I understand it in my limited way, that there are dormant dimensions in our universe. And let us say that in this universe we are traversing to that some of these dormant dimensions are active. Now we find that our assumption "reason is reasonable" doesn't hold up any longer, it was merely a pragmatic approach that only holds in this universe. The ontological reality "Ultimate reason" if true here, would be true there, and if we had been busy reasoning our way towards it we would find ourselves better "equipped" in that new universe.
The premise "reason is reasonable" doesn't get us beyond the point where men disagree. The ontological reality "Ultimate Reason" opens up vistas naturalism can never pierce.
Thanks for the dialogue,
Dennis

This message is a reply to:
 Message 193 by PaulK, posted 01-05-2005 7:45 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 204 by nator, posted 01-07-2005 8:06 AM dshortt has not replied
 Message 205 by contracycle, posted 01-07-2005 10:00 AM dshortt has not replied
 Message 208 by PaulK, posted 01-07-2005 11:38 AM dshortt has replied

  
nator
Member (Idle past 2170 days)
Posts: 12961
From: Ann Arbor
Joined: 12-09-2001


Message 204 of 278 (174625)
01-07-2005 8:06 AM
Reply to: Message 203 by dshortt
01-07-2005 6:00 AM


Re: Epistemology and the reliability of human reason
The arguments don't evaporate if you ignore them, dshortt.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 203 by dshortt, posted 01-07-2005 6:00 AM dshortt has not replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 205 of 278 (174667)
01-07-2005 10:00 AM
Reply to: Message 203 by dshortt
01-07-2005 6:00 AM


Re: Epistemology and the reliability of human reason
quote:
The premise "reason is reasonable" doesn't get us beyond the point where men disagree. The ontological reality "Ultimate Reason" opens up vistas naturalism can never pierce.
I'm afraid it opens up bugger-all. "reason is reasonable" can at least be defended from our own experience. The proposition that there is some "ultimate reason" cannot be, nor can "we are created in its image". Both of those are ridculous.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 203 by dshortt, posted 01-07-2005 6:00 AM dshortt has not replied

  
dshortt
Inactive Member


Message 206 of 278 (174684)
01-07-2005 10:50 AM
Reply to: Message 193 by PaulK
01-05-2005 7:45 PM


Further Thoughts on Epistemology and the reliability of human reason
Hey Paul,
If I may, I would like to add that if Ultimate Reason exists prior to the universe, any premises emanating from it or revealed by it take precedence over any premises that man creates. So, if Ultimate Reason reveals to us that "we are made in the image of Ultimate Reason", this replaces our first premise, "man's reason can be trusted."
The lack of absolutes and reason that pre-exists man assumed by naturalism doesn't seem to have much consequence in empirical science, but really comes to the forefront when we begin to speak of values and morality. Scenario:
A prominent biologist who has been working on, and seems to be close to finding, a cure for cancer jumps in front of a speeding truck to save the life of a small boy who is the son of a common laborer. The biologist is killed. Naturalistic philosophy would seem to say "what a waste. We could be delayed years now in finding the cure for cancer." Christian philosophy implies this man is a hero and should be honored. "There is no greater love than laying down one's life for another."
It gets worse, because what is the basis for a volunteer army or militia under a naturalistic philosophy? It begins to look stupid for one to put oneself in harm's way intentionally. Societally we need such individuals and honor them, but on an individual basis we look at them and wonder "why would you waste your life in a low paying profession where you can be killed."
And this moral dilemma plays out in the future at the point population control becomes a life threatening issue. How will it be determined who is to be eliminated? Under a naturalistic philosophy the elite or powerful will determine who lives. Christian philosophy would say Christians are to line up and volunteer to die to save others if that is what it comes down to.
Thanks
Dennis

This message is a reply to:
 Message 193 by PaulK, posted 01-05-2005 7:45 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 209 by PaulK, posted 01-07-2005 12:05 PM dshortt has replied
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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 207 of 278 (174691)
01-07-2005 11:33 AM
Reply to: Message 202 by dshortt
01-07-2005 5:13 AM


Oh, wait. No, you're right. Sort of. He used to be an atheist. I read the Wiki article wrong.
He has moved from atheism to deism. But it would not be accurate to describe his position as "theism", nor does he believe that the Christian or Muslim gods exist. Neither does he believe in the possibility of revelation from God. So the title of the article is wrong at best, and purposefully misleading at worst. Flew is not, nor has he ever been, a theist.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 202 by dshortt, posted 01-07-2005 5:13 AM dshortt has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 210 by dshortt, posted 01-07-2005 12:22 PM crashfrog has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 208 of 278 (174693)
01-07-2005 11:38 AM
Reply to: Message 203 by dshortt
01-07-2005 6:00 AM


Re: Epistemology and the reliability of human reason
quote:
...once man reasons his way to the ontological reality "Ultimate reason exists, and I am made in it's image", then from that point we are relieved of the burden of making the assumption "reason is reasonable" as the first premise to epistemology
I'm afriad that is wrong. Having reached that conclusion we could build furhter upon it but we cannot forget how we got to it. It is built on a foundation and we cannot throw that out or pretend it does not exist. Not least because the reliability of that conclusion depends on the reliability of the methods used to reach it. So even if you could reach that conclusion with a high degree of certainty (which would be an amazing philosophical breakthrough) you still would have to keep the old foundations of epistemology.
quote:
You mentioned earlier a possibility of man travelling to another universe someday. Now it is thought, as I understand it in my limited way, that there are dormant dimensions in our universe. And let us say that in this universe we are traversing to that some of these dormant dimensions are active. Now we find that our assumption "reason is reasonable" doesn't hold up any longer
...
Well, no we don't. There's no reason to suppose that a 4th spatial dimension would have that effect at all (not that we would be likely to survive long enough to find out). Mathematics handles 4 - and more - dimensions as well as it handles 3.
quote:
...
The ontological reality "Ultimate reason" if true here, would be true there, and if we had been busy reasoning our way towards it we would find ourselves better "equipped" in that new universe.
And this is even worse. If the "reason is reasonable" - to use your wording - is wrong then this is even more wrong, since it makes a stronger claim about the reliability of reason - and therefore unreliability naturally hurts it more.
I THINK what you meant to say is that your preferred axiom implies a greater probability that our reasoning would work in a universe with 4 spatial dimensions. But I don't accept that that is true in the case of more formal forms of reasoning (and you have given no reason to think that it is). Naturally our informal reasoning (intuition) is less likely to be reliable (being adapted to our universe) but I am all but certain that that is in fact true (indeed we know that our intuitive ideas often do not apply to situations radically different from those we encounter - Special Relativity for instance is quite against our normal ideas).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 203 by dshortt, posted 01-07-2005 6:00 AM dshortt has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 211 by dshortt, posted 01-07-2005 12:46 PM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 209 of 278 (174706)
01-07-2005 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 206 by dshortt
01-07-2005 10:50 AM


Re: Further Thoughts on Epistemology and the reliability of human reason
Well for a start it's all very well to say
quote:
Ultimate Reason reveals to us that "we are made in the image of Ultimate Reason"
But how can we be sure that it is true ? And unless we can be at least as certain of it as we are of "man's reason can be trusted" we would be very foolish to replace the latter with the former, since we would be making our epistemology less reliable.
As for your ideas about morality I can't emphasise enough tha tnaturalism says very little about morality and it certainly does not dictate utilitarianism as you would have it.
quote:
A prominent biologist who has been working on, and seems to be close to finding, a cure for cancer jumps in front of a speeding truck to save the life of a small boy who is the son of a common laborer. The biologist is killed. Naturalistic philosophy would seem to say "what a waste. We could be delayed years now in finding the cure for cancer." Christian philosophy implies this man is a hero and should be honored. "There is no greater love than laying down one's life for another
Well it is far from clear that Christianity WOULD say that the biologist made the right decision - unless it also dictates that the suffering and deaths of the many cancer victims is of no consequence.
On the other hand from an evolutionary perspective we certainly can't be sure that our instincts would place an intellectual idea of what might happen ahead of the immediate emotional responses.
quote:
what is the basis for a volunteer army or militia under a naturalistic philosophy
At this point I must repeat that there IS no entirely satisfactory basis for morality.
And I must certainly ask why Christianity shoudl be seen as automatically supporting the formation of any sort of military force - certainly there are arguments within Christianity. So far as I can see the problem is greater within Christianity since I can't see a naturalistic objection to forming a volunteer army.
Likewise your population argument is also unlikely to actually play out in reality. I don't think that many Christians will line up to be killed if it were to become necessary (and I do not expect that it will). Indeed if Christians were really concerned about it they should be dedicating themselve to celibacy as St. Paul suggested or even going to the extreme advocated by Origen. Yet in fact we see none of this and the largest Christian grouping (representing roughly half of all Christians) is actively against contraception.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 206 by dshortt, posted 01-07-2005 10:50 AM dshortt has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 217 by dshortt, posted 01-07-2005 3:36 PM PaulK has replied

  
dshortt
Inactive Member


Message 210 of 278 (174711)
01-07-2005 12:22 PM
Reply to: Message 207 by crashfrog
01-07-2005 11:33 AM


PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING!!!! Flew told Habermas in January 2004 that he had indeed become a theist. On top of that he approved the title. Further, at one point Habermas asks Flew "Given your theism, what about mind-body issues?" To which Flew replies with the difficulty of conceptualizing an incorporeal person.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 207 by crashfrog, posted 01-07-2005 11:33 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 213 by PaulK, posted 01-07-2005 1:17 PM dshortt has not replied
 Message 218 by crashfrog, posted 01-07-2005 3:41 PM dshortt has not replied

  
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