Where were you a decade ago.

[LANA]

My claim was that you sound ridiculous, which is a judgment of personal taste, and as such doesn't require the support of an argument. Grandiose claims regarding the origin, nature, and purpose of the universe on the other hand, require support.

So it was just an opinion then. I understand, but it's better to talk about the truth.
If You want materials about universe and so on, then I recommend: icr, rzim, answersingenesis, livingwaters. Plenty of things to watch and read there. I hope that helps.

[Pete]

Science textbooks are also pretty useful

[Clint]

Science is a lie, straight from the pits of hell.

[Heartless Angel]

No, it really doesn't 'help' at all.

If you're too lazy to pose your own arguments, no one is interested in hearing your conclusions.

[LANA]

No, it really doesn't 'help' at all.

If you're too lazy to pose your own arguments, no one is interested in hearing your conclusions.

You said that claims about origin of the universe, for example, require support. And so I provided, plenty of materials there, on those websites. And now You claim laziness on my part? With all the respect, but there are lots of things to watch and read on those websites, so I hope You were not lazy and did actually check at least some of them.

[Heartless Angel]

Have you read every issue of every Spiderman comic ever printed? I'll assume not. Would it be reasonable for me to expect you to consider his existence as the default position until you'd proven otherwise? Of course not.

You provided the names of online apologetic ministries. That's not the same as making an argument. If you're on a crusade to save souls and the best you can do is quoting scripture and giving the names of apologetic ministry websites, you're a shitty crusader.

It's not my job to figure out your argument for you. If anyone here were interested in googling apologetic ministries, they were more than capable of doing so without your presence here. You've raised no new questions for anyone, brought no new information to anyone, provided no one with any interest in researching the subject more than they already had, and thus you have contributed absolutely nothing of worth.

[Rowan]

You said that claims about origin of the universe, for example, require support. And so I provided, plenty of materials there, on those websites. And now You claim laziness on my part? With all the respect, but there are lots of things to watch and read on those websites, so I hope You were not lazy and did actually check at least some of them.

Legit getting flashbacks on my referencing for my last uni assignment.

[nix]

God created the universe you guys, come on let it go, its so obvious

Sure he did, he told us about it himself, by not mentioning anything about life or anything off this planet in a book, written over a thousand years after the first ever book was written by a dood thats not God, but claims god spoke to him in the form of a burning bush (possibly a marijuana bush), that dood then started writing a bible, which the burning bush didnt ask him to do, he just did it and called it the word of god. Then a couple of dozen centuries later a group of lads who used to hang out with hardcore masochist David Blane like motha fucker, done the bible reboot or remaster, in which they changed and added shit to it themselves.. and then that trend just kept happening all throughout time since.. Think of how like the story of Spider man has been changed and altered to over the years in movies and comics.. Thats what happened with the bible..

People pay respect to the bible in churches by zoning out while a covert child molester waffles on about his fav stories from the most recent local version of the bible, that have nothing to do with how the universe or anything off the planet earth was created, but they know god created it all...THEY JUST DO!

Where as people who like spider man stories can pay their love and respect not in churches.. oh no, but in comic book stores and cinema's, or in the confines of their very own home.. And instead of zoning out or asking god for things in their head that they want, they watch/read the stories themselves while maybe consuming foods and beverages, it brightens up their day/week.

The main difference between these, is the Church goers believe in god, even though they have never seen/heard/tasted him and the Spider men people know Spider man doesnt actually exist, even though they have seen many versions of him visually, they just know he is a man made creation for entertainment purposes..

But know this! God created the universe and everything in it, therefore created Spiderman so nay say the burning marijuana bush of times past!

[LANA]

Have you read every issue of every Spiderman comic ever printed? I'll assume not. Would it be reasonable for me to expect you to consider his existence as the default position until you'd proven otherwise? Of course not.

You provided the names of online apologetic ministries. That's not the same as making an argument. If you're on a crusade to save souls and the best you can do is quoting scripture and giving the names of apologetic ministry websites, you're a shitty crusader.

It's not my job to figure out your argument for you. If anyone here were interested in googling apologetic ministries, they were more than capable of doing so without your presence here. You've raised no new questions for anyone, brought no new information to anyone, provided no one with any interest in researching the subject more than they already had, and thus you have contributed absolutely nothing of worth.

Lots of insults and lies, but I expected that.
OK, so how about that for an argument?

Most people today have not given much thought to their own worldview. In fact, many people do not even realize they have a worldview. Many people tend to think that all knowledge is acquired by unbiased observation of the evidence around us. This view is called empiricism and is itself a kind of worldview. We cannot help but have some beliefs about how the world works, how we attain knowledge, and how we should live. Even if we believe that we have no such beliefs – this is itself a belief. So there’s no escaping it. A worldview is inevitable.
Worldview is a network of our most basic beliefs about reality in light of which all observations are interpreted. It’s a bit like ‘mental glasses’. It affects the way we view things. In the same way that a person wearing red glasses sees red everywhere, a person wearing “evolution” glasses sees evolution everywhere. The world is not really red everywhere, nor is there genuine evidence for evolution, but glasses do affect our perception of the world and the conclusions we draw. Without ‘biblical glasses’ the world appears fuzzy and unclear. But when our thinking is based on the Bible, the world snaps into focus: it makes sense.
Since we all interpret evidence in light of our worldviews, and since creationists and evolutionists have different worldviews, is there any way to rationally resolve the debate over origins?
We need a criterion by which we can distinguish a true worldview from a false one. First we need to realize that worldviews have consequences. Whatever person chooses as his or her ultimate standard will lead to other beliefs, which will lead to others, and so on. And since some beliefs do not comport with each other, our criterion to distinguish between true and false worldview is simple: a true worldview must be logically consistent. If a worldview has internal contradictions, then it cannot be entirely true since contradictions cannot be true. Moreover, some worldviews lead to the strange consequence that it would be impossible to actually know anything. Such a worldview is rationally defective since it would be impossible to know that it is true. So although everyone has an ultimate standard, not all ultimate standards will provide a self-consistent worldview in which knowledge is possible. If a worldview is self-contradictory, or has absurd consequences, then it cannot be correct. As an example, consider the philosophy of relativism. Relativists believe that truth is “relative” – that it varies from person to person. Relativism includes the idea that there are no absolutes. But the proposition that “there are no absolutes” is itself an absolute proposition. Relativists assert that it is absolutely true that truth is not absolute. This is a self-defeating philosophy. If relativism were absolutely true, it would lead to the consequence that it cannot be absolutely true. So, if it were true, it would be false; therefore it is false.
In order for a worldview to be rationally defensible, it must be internally consistent. But just because a worldview is self-consistent does not necessarily mean that it is correct. There is another criterion as well. A rational worldview must provide the preconditions of intelligibility. These are the conditions that must be accepted as true before we can know anything about the universe. The preconditions of intelligibility are things that most people take for granted. The reliability of memory is one example. Everyone assumes that his or her memory is basically reliable, but this turns out to be rather difficult to prove. How do you really know that your memory is reliable? Some might say, “Well, I took a memory test two weeks ago, and I did very well on it.” But we could reply, “How do you know you took a test two weeks ago? Just because you remember this doesn’t prove it happened unless we already knew your memory is reliable.” That our memories are basically reliable is something that we all assume before we begin to investigate the universe.
Another example is reliability of our senses. We suppose that our eyes, ears, and other senses reliably report the details about the universe in which we live. Without this assumption, science would be impossible. We could draw no reliable conclusions from any experiment if our observations of the experiment are unreliable. If our sensory experiences are merely illusions, then science would be impossible.
Consider one more crucial example: laws of logic. We all presume that there are laws of logic that govern correct reasoning. How could we prove that the laws of logic are correct? We would have to first assume that they are true in order to begin a logical proof. Therefore, laws of logic constitute a precondition of intelligibility. They must be assumed before we can even begin to reason about anything – including reasoning about the laws of logic themselves.
A logically correct worldview must provide these preconditions of intelligibility, because without them we could not know anything about the universe. Both creationists and evolutionists must assume the preconditions of intelligibility at the outset in order to know anything. Without justification for the things we take for granted, we can’t really know that any of our thinking or observations of the world are correct. And if our thinking and observations are unreliable, then we really can’t be certain about anything at all.
Proverbs 1:7 indicates that knowledge begins with a respectful submission to biblical God and that rejection of the wisdom of biblical instruction leads inevitably to irrationality – to “foolishness”. This is the key to the ultimate proof of biblical creation, or, for that matter, the Bible, the Christian worldview, the existence of God, and so on. The ultimate proof of creation can be summarized as follows: if biblical creation were not true, we would not know anything! The logical prerequisites for knowledge (which most people take for granted) are provided only in biblical creation, and would be impossible in an evolutionary or atheistic universe. Only the God described in the Bible can provide the rational foundation for the things we take for granted. Without God’s Word, we would have no good reason to believe in the preconditions of intelligibility: the basic reliability of memory and sense, laws of logic, uniformity of nature, morality, personal dignity and freedom, and so on. Thus, we would be unable to justify our beliefs about anything whatsoever.

[Pete]

But you could make that same exact argument about the Bible. What proof is there that God actually wrote the Bible? You're being everything on belief that it is because that's what you believe. That's your truth. That's the quote that you pulled to prove your point, but it also just says "this is the truth because it's the truth, don't listen to anything else."

A person seeking answers and wisdom would logically seek other books and ideas, not necessarily to disprove your beliefs, but because it seems like a trap or even Stockholm syndrome to submit yourself to something that tells you everything else is wrong, with no evidence of anything except for belief.

We have things like science and evidence of things throughout history that prove facts. Take for example what happened 17 years ago today. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the World Trade Center was destroyed. I remember what happened, and I have factual documents that corroborate my truth. There are attendance sheets for my classes, my student ID card, which proves I attended said school, notebooks with class notes, and other students who were with me. Even if my memory were to falter on a detail, I would still have the chronology through documentation.

Also, as for the reliability of our senses, there are metrics which have been standardized to literally verify the quality of our senses. Vision tests, hearing tests, etc.

[Heartless Angel]

See, now that's an interesting post, filled with relevant philosophical ideas, and is something actually worth debating. Had you led with that instead of carpet bombing threads with bible verses, you would have been received a lot better.



I'm a rationalist, myself. Empiricism is in a way, self-defeating, as it requires reason which can not be experienced to establish the connection between experience and knowledge. If knowledge can come only from experience, it can't be known that knowledge can only come from experience, and if it can't be known that knowledge comes only from experience, it fails to explain where knowledge comes from. rationalism has a similar flaw, in that logic can not prove that the rules of logic determine truth, but this requires one fewer assumption than empiricism to reach the same dead end, and as such, empiricism is a needless complexity that doesn't strengthen the system.

Problem: By your own statements, a worldview is necessary. By your own statements, it is impossible for you to know what the world looks like without your glasses. You only have an understanding of how the world looks through whatever combinations of eye-wear you've tried on, and as such, you can't make any meaningful claim about how the world looks to the rest of us without your glasses the way you just did.

For people whose basic worldview already contains their final conclusions? No, there is no debating such people. The vast majority of us however, aren't wearing those particular pairs of prescription lenses. I don't believe I've ever met anyone who considers evolution to be a part of their basic worldview. I've known a fair few empiricists, for whom evolution just happens to be something that can bee seen through that particular pair of glasses, but none for whom evolution is itself a pair of glasses. Religious people, on the other hand, almost exclusively view the world through a fundamental bias which contains that final conclusion, because there aren't really any other worldviews that easily allow one to adopt it.

Here's where epistemology gets fun. How do you know that the truth can't be contradictory? It certainly seems like it shouldn't be, but that's just how we interpret it. The same goes for allowing you to establish a coherent system of knowledge. It would certainly be nice if that were the case, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. It may be necessary for an answer to be useful, but that doesn't mean it's necessary for an answer to be true.

But there's the crux of the problem. We can't know unless we presume we know. If we have to presume to know, it just means we don't actually know. You can't build a real house on an imaginary foundation. The only structure that can be stand on an imaginary foundation is an imaginary one.

It's not possible to presume the rules of logic, credibility of sensory data, or reliability of memory without a presumption of god? Sorry, but that's a very unsatisfying conclusion, and clearly an incorrect one. A presumption, by definition is made without rational justification, and as such there is no need to accept anything at all in order to make them. Your worldview faces exactly the same errors as any other; it just required additional complexity to reach the same logical dead end of circular reasoning. And thus, like empiricism, it's just an additional assumption that fails to strengthen the system, and is therefore unnecessary.

[Taco-Calamitous]

Since we all interpret evidence in light of our worldviews, and since creationists and evolutionists have different worldviews, is there any way to rationally resolve the debate over origins?

The simple answer is that we can't. What makes sense to you does not make sense to someone who believes in evolution, and vice versa.

And since some beliefs do not comport with each other, our criterion to distinguish between true and false worldview is simple: a true worldview must be logically consistent.

Which will differ from person to person, depending upon his or her experiences and upbringing.

Relativists believe that truth is “relative” – that it varies from person to person. Relativism includes the idea that there are no absolutes. But the proposition that “there are no absolutes” is itself an absolute proposition.

That is a very simplistic and misleading interpretation of what relativists believe. As a relativist, I think that there is not enough evidence to prove any given belief system true to everyone. You're also working on a lot of presumptions on how a belief system can and cannot work, although Heartless Angel has already addressed that.

I don't have all the answers, and I know I don't have all the answers, but I know that your journey is your own, and so is everyone else's. When you come in as hot as you have, that only serves to annoy people and cause resentment towards you and whatever it is you believe in. You should not have any expectation to convince people to change their belief systems on a message board forum. I've seen many people over the years do like you've done here, and it always ends up the same way. It doesn't help.

[LANA]

See, now that's an interesting post, filled with relevant philosophical ideas, and is something actually worth debating. Had you led with that instead of carpet bombing threads with bible verses, you would have been received a lot better.



I'm a rationalist, myself. Empiricism is in a way, self-defeating, as it requires reason which can not be experienced to establish the connection between experience and knowledge. If knowledge can come only from experience, it can't be known that knowledge can only come from experience, and if it can't be known that knowledge comes only from experience, it fails to explain where knowledge comes from. rationalism has a similar flaw, in that logic can not prove that the rules of logic determine truth, but this requires one fewer assumption than empiricism to reach the same dead end, and as such, empiricism is a needless complexity that doesn't strengthen the system.

Problem: By your own statements, a worldview is necessary. By your own statements, it is impossible for you to know what the world looks like without your glasses. You only have an understanding of how the world looks through whatever combinations of eye-wear you've tried on, and as such, you can't make any meaningful claim about how the world looks to the rest of us without your glasses the way you just did.

For people whose basic worldview already contains their final conclusions? No, there is no debating such people. The vast majority of us however, aren't wearing those particular pairs of prescription lenses. I don't believe I've ever met anyone who considers evolution to be a part of their basic worldview. I've known a fair few empiricists, for whom evolution just happens to be something that can bee seen through that particular pair of glasses, but none for whom evolution is itself a pair of glasses. Religious people, on the other hand, almost exclusively view the world through a fundamental bias which contains that final conclusion, because there aren't really any other worldviews that easily allow one to adopt it.

Here's where epistemology gets fun. How do you know that the truth can't be contradictory? It certainly seems like it shouldn't be, but that's just how we interpret it. The same goes for allowing you to establish a coherent system of knowledge. It would certainly be nice if that were the case, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. It may be necessary for an answer to be useful, but that doesn't mean it's necessary for an answer to be true.

But there's the crux of the problem. We can't know unless we presume we know. If we have to presume to know, it just means we don't actually know. You can't build a real house on an imaginary foundation. The only structure that can be stand on an imaginary foundation is an imaginary one.

It's not possible to presume the rules of logic, credibility of sensory data, or reliability of memory without a presumption of god? Sorry, but that's a very unsatisfying conclusion, and clearly an incorrect one. A presumption, by definition is made without rational justification, and as such there is no need to accept anything at all in order to make them. Your worldview faces exactly the same errors as any other; it just required additional complexity to reach the same logical dead end of circular reasoning. And thus, like empiricism, it's just an additional assumption that fails to strengthen the system, and is therefore unnecessary.

Since You proclaim to be a rationalist, then how do You know Your reasoning is valid? And where does it come from? Where does the information, life, universe come from?
In Your worldview, what is truth and where is it? And how do You account for uniformity of nature and immaterial, unchanging laws of logic?

As for the other person responding, how do You know there is 'not enough evidence'? How much of the total knowledge You have to make that claim? And what constitutes 'evidence' in Your worldview? And if You are relying on laws of logic, uniformity of nature, etc. in the process, how do You account for their existence?
And it's not 'coming hot'. I came here with love, to the lost people who need the Saviour. But they prefer sinful lifestyles and wilful rejection of the Maker they DO know to exist. And they also know He is the Judge and they are guilty of sinning against Him. That's why they prefer to suppress it and run away to some fantasy like rationalism of relativism (which are self-refuting).


Reasoning involves using the laws of logic. These include the law of non-contradiction which says that you can’t have A and not-A at the same time and in the same relationship. For example, the statement “My car is in the parking lot, and it is not the case that my car is in the parking lot” is necessarily false by the law of non-contradiction. Any rational person would accept this law. But why is this law true? Why should there be a law of non-contradiction, or for that matter, any laws of reasoning? The Christian can answer this question. For the Christian there is an absolute standard for reasoning; we are to pattern our thoughts after God’s. The laws of logic are a reflection of the way God thinks. The law of non-contradiction is not simply one person’s opinion of how we ought to think, rather it stems from God’s self consistent nature. God cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13), and so, the way God upholds the universe will necessarily be non-contradictory.
Laws of logic are God’s standard for thinking. Since God is an unchanging, sovereign, immaterial Being, the laws of logic are abstract, universal, invariant entities. In other words, they are not made of matter – they apply everywhere and at all times. Laws of logic are contingent upon God’s unchanging nature. And they are necessary for logical reasoning. Thus, rational reasoning would be impossible without the biblical God.
The materialistic atheist can’t have laws of logic. He believes that everything that exists is material – part of the physical world. But laws of logic are not physical. You can’t stub your toe on a law of logic. Laws of logic cannot exist in the atheist’s world, yet he uses them to try to reason. This is inconsistent. He is borrowing from the Christian worldview to argue against the Christian worldview. The atheist’s view cannot be rational because he uses things (laws of logic) that cannot exist according to his profession.
The debate over the existence of God is a bit like a debate over the existence of air. Can you imagine someone arguing that air doesn’t actually exist? He would offer seemingly excellent “proofs” against the existence of air, while simultaneously breathing air and expecting that we can hear his words as the sound is transmitted through the air. In order for us to hear and understand his claim, it would have to be wrong. Likewise, the atheist, in arguing that God does not exist must use laws of logic that only make sense if God does exist. In order for his argument to make sense, it would have to be wrong.

[Heartless Angel]

Since You proclaim to be a rationalist, then how do You know Your reasoning is valid? And where does it come from? Where does the information, life, universe come from?
In Your worldview, what is truth and where is it? And how do You account for uniformity of nature and immaterial, unchanging laws of logic?

As you already said, and I already agreed to, we must presume the laws of logic to go anywhere else. I know my arguments are valid, only because they meet those standards of validity that we have chosen to accept, essentially arbitrarily. As for life and the universe, their origins remain unknown. There are of course theories, but none can be proven beyond any doubt.

Truth, in epistemology can mean a few things. The two definitions of truth that we generally try to discuss are coherent and correspondent truth theory. Coherent truth theory suggests that what we mean when we say that something is true, is that it is internally consistent with all of our other beliefs. Correspondent truth theory suggests that what is meant by 'true', is that a statement accurately describes the absolute state of reality. As for your prior and rather simplistic attempt at a refutation of relativism, this is how they get around that. It is coherently true in that worldview, that knowledge of correspondent truth is not possible.

There really isn't a need to account for uniformity or permanence. No matter what exists, doesn't exist, or could have existed, it is necessarily true that there would be something, even if that something were nothingness. And the state of that something could either be permanent, or impermanent. With or without a god, one of those two states was necessarily going to be. Permanence follows from the presumption of reason. If there is a consistent set of rules by which the universe can be understood, the universe itself must follow a consistent set of rules. And because reason itself is only a presumption, we actually can't be sure of permanence. We believe there is permanence, but there is no way to disprove the possibility that you and I just popped into existence half an hour ago at complete random with memories of lives, including the parts of this conversation that we believe happened more than half an hour ago. We also have no way to prove that all the apparent laws of the universe won't just disappear tomorrow. We have no reason to believe that they WILL, but we also have no way to know that they won't, because our laws of reason would not apply to such a world.

Reasoning involves using the laws of logic. These include the law of non-contradiction which says that you can’t have A and not-A at the same time and in the same relationship. For example, the statement “My car is in the parking lot, and it is not the case that my car is in the parking lot” is necessarily false by the law of non-contradiction. Any rational person would accept this law. But why is this law true? Why should there be a law of non-contradiction, or for that matter, any laws of reasoning? The Christian can answer this question. For the Christian there is an absolute standard for reasoning; we are to pattern our thoughts after God’s. The laws of logic are a reflection of the way God thinks. The law of non-contradiction is not simply one person’s opinion of how we ought to think, rather it stems from God’s self consistent nature. God cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13), and so, the way God upholds the universe will necessarily be non-contradictory.
Laws of logic are God’s standard for thinking. Since God is an unchanging, sovereign, immaterial Being, the laws of logic are abstract, universal, invariant entities. In other words, they are not made of matter – they apply everywhere and at all times. Laws of logic are contingent upon God’s unchanging nature. And they are necessary for logical reasoning. Thus, rational reasoning would be impossible without the biblical God.

A rational person MUST accept the principle of non-contradiction, because a rational person is, by definition a person who believes in the laws of logic, one of which is the non-contradiction principle. But to accept and to know are two fundamentally different things.

And here is the critical flaw in your reasoning. You presume that God is the only possible source for reason. You believe in god. And thus, you believe that reason exists. The problem is, that to reach this point, you had to apply reason TO god, not AFTER god. Your worldview requires you to presuppose reason AND god. If you didn't presuppose reason, you could not infer the existence of reason from the existence of god.

While the rationalist must assert logic simply by presupposing it, an argument following a form something like A:A, you've presumed logic, in addition to the necessity of god, something along the lines of A, If A then B, If B then A:A. Your argument is still just as circular, you've simply added in two redundant premises. Furthermore, even if you HAD made a good argument that the existence of logic required the existence of a god (to be clear, you haven't), it would not necessitate the biblical god. Any god defined as self-consistent, sovereign, immaterial, and eternal could fill that role. The One Above All of the Marvel comics universe could just as easily satisfy your conditions.

The materialistic atheist can’t have laws of logic. He believes that everything that exists is material – part of the physical world. But laws of logic are not physical. You can’t stub your toe on a law of logic. Laws of logic cannot exist in the atheist’s world, yet he uses them to try to reason. This is inconsistent. He is borrowing from the Christian worldview to argue against the Christian worldview. The atheist’s view cannot be rational because he uses things (laws of logic) that cannot exist according to his profession.

Okay, this is just a straight-up strawman. Materialism is the theory that matter and energy are the fundamental form of existence and that all objects, events, and experiences can be explained as manifestations or results of matter. In the materialistic view, logic is not an object which has a physical existence, it is an emergent property of physical existence. Furthermore, theism is not the only alternative to materialism, and materialism is not a prerequisite for atheism, as there are such things as atheistic idealism, dualism, or pluralism; so in addition to employing a strawman, your argument is also invalid.

The debate over the existence of God is a bit like a debate over the existence of air. Can you imagine someone arguing that air doesn’t actually exist? He would offer seemingly excellent “proofs” against the existence of air, while simultaneously breathing air and expecting that we can hear his words as the sound is transmitted through the air. In order for us to hear and understand his claim, it would have to be wrong. Likewise, the atheist, in arguing that God does not exist must use laws of logic that only make sense if God does exist. In order for his argument to make sense, it would have to be wrong.

See above. You still have to presuppose logic to infer that logic follows from god. The atheist in this metaphor isn't arguing against air, but rather Tim the Invisible Oxygen Fairy that you've insisted is responsible for the existence of air despite completely failing to prove it, while you conflate the two as equivalent because the fundamental bias of your world view doesn't allow you to divorce the two concepts.

[Taco-Calamitous]

As for the other person responding, how do You know there is 'not enough evidence'? How much of the total knowledge You have to make that claim? And what constitutes 'evidence' in Your worldview? And if You are relying on laws of logic, uniformity of nature, etc. in the process, how do You account for their existence?

Because there simply isn't. Not for them to be swayed by you or your worldview, and not enough for you to be swayed by theirs. This has already been thoroughly demonstrated in every conversation you have been involved in on these forums, and it has been the outcome of pretty much every conversation similar in nature to what I've seen in the past. Human beings don't operate fully on logic. How they respond often has to do with their upbringing, their emotions, their personal identity. Things like religion, atheism, etc., are wrapped into a person's identity, and it is incredibly difficult to convince someone that part of their identity is wrong. It hurts them. Therefore, much of the time, people will interpret the same information differently. For example, a study found that Liberals and Conservatives will look at something as simple as the temperature, and the Liberals will interpret it as being hot, while Conservatives will interpret it as being cold.

And it's not 'coming hot'.

When I said "hot," I didn't mean angry. Maybe I should've said "strong." You've come on far too strong. One might even say you've been "tone-deaf." In fact, I will say it: you are acting tone-deaf in regards to how people are reacting to what you are saying, and how you should respond to that.

I'm not gonna argue with you about anything else that you said, because it will make no difference in the end.

[LANA]

Many people have abandoned the idea that there is any way to know the truth about many topics. This applies to many areas of life, but people seem to realize that this type of relativism doesn’t work when it comes to their bank accounts or putting gas in their car. There is a disconnection between what people want reality to be and what it actually is.
Many people have rejected the idea that it is possible to know whether or not there is a God. They claim religious and spiritual matters are merely subjective, but they offer no proof for these claims. Some suggest that all roads lead to heaven or that everyone gets to determine what happens to them when they die. Neither of these options is logically possible. If all roads lead to heaven, then all of the claims of various religions must be true.
Examining the claims of various religions shows that they contradict one another. Muslims believe that there is only one god, Allah, that he is distant, and that he has revealed himself through the writings in the Koran. Buddhists do not believe there is a god, and Hindus adopt new gods at every turn. Rastafarians believe they can only connect with the divine through drug-induced states and that Jesus returned as Haile Selassie. Christians believe God exists as the Trinity and that Jesus has not yet returned to the earth.
Because these various religions make claims that are contradictory, they cannot all be true. Either Christians are correct and Jesus is still to return or the Rastafarians are correct and Jesus was present as an Ethiopian Emperor. Simple logic tells us that both cannot be true. But this leads us to ask another important question – where did logic come from?
The Bible presents the only possible answer to this question and the conditions of the reality we live in. That might sound like an outrageous claim, but if the Bible is not true, then we have no logically coherent explanation for the universe we live in. All other systems of thinking are based on some sort of logical fallacy. The Bible alone reveals the nature and character of the God who created the entire universe and has done so in a logical way. He has created a universe that operates according to orderly principles where logic can be used to understand the world around us.
If the universe were simply the result of chance processes, why would we expect the order we see? Only a universe created by an all-knowing, all-powerful Creator could exhibit the qualities we see in our universe. Since God is the Creator, He has right to rule over His creation. He has established laws for his creatures to follow and He has communicated those to us in the Bible.
When God originally created the universe, He described everything as very good. He created an orderly universe that was functioning in perfect harmony. Then, part of His creation rebelled against the Creator. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and plunged the entire universe into a corrupted state. Since we are all descendants of Adam and Eve, we bear the scars of that corruption – we have sinned against God just like Adam.
If you doubt this, just stop and examine your heart. God demands perfect obedience from His creatures. If you are honest with yourself, you will recognize that you are not perfect. You might object that no one is perfect and that would mean that everyone is subject to God’s judgement. Actually, that is the awful truth of humanity. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). If you are not perfect in moral character (you have lied, lusted, put yourself before others, ignored God, or given your affections to money and happiness over God), God’s wrath against sin is set against you.
The Bible describes God as a just Judge who will judge everyone according to their deeds. Psalm 7:11-17 describe the state of man before God:
God is a just Judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he does not turn back, He will sharpen His sword; He bends His bow and makes it ready. He also prepares for Himself instruments of death; He makes His arrows into fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood. He made a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown. I will praise the Lord according to His righteousness, and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.
That sounds like bad news – God is intent on judging the wicked acts of mankind. Because He is just, He must punish sin. But the Bible also reveals the mercy of God in many places. He shows that mercy in providing a substitute to take the punishment that every human deserves for their sin.
God the Son, Jesus Christ, stepped into this corrupted world as a baby in a manger. He lived a life of moral perfection on this earth and then willingly offered His life as a ransom for many by dying on the Cross. As He hung on the Cross, God the Father poured out His wrath against sin upon the perfect Son. Jesus bore the penalty for sin in order that He could take the place of sinful mankind and turn away the wrath of God.
The Bible says that God’s wrath against sin is satisfied in Jesus’ work on the Cross for all those who repent of their sins and place their trust in Christ. This means turning away from the idea that we can do enough good to merit God’s favour, and trusting that only the finished work of Christ can save us from God’s wrath. God’s mercy and grace are demonstrated in this great exchange: Jesus takes the punishment for our sins and gives us His righteous record.
When you stand before God on the Day of Judgement and He asks you why you should be allowed to enter into His kingdom, how will you respond? Will you tell Him He is an ogre to expect mankind to obey His commands? Will you tell Him of all the “good things” you have done to earn entrance? Or, will you tell Him that you have no right of your own to enter into His kingdom, but that what His Son has done on your behalf is the only reason you should be allowed in? When you cry out to God for mercy for your sins and surrender your life to Christ, He will clothe you with His robe of righteousness and you can be welcomed into His kingdom at His expense.
No other religion offers complete forgiveness for sin. Many try to cover it up; many try to pile up good works that might outweigh the bad; many try to ignore the idea and say that there is no sin. Only one of these ideas can be correct way to deal with sin. Trust that the Creator God of the universe has plainly revealed His plan of salvation in the words of the Bible, and run to Christ for true salvation.

The atheist might say, “Well, I can reason just fine, and I don’t believe in God.” But this is no different than the critic of air saying, “Well, I can breathe just fine, and I don’t believe in air.” This isn’t a rational response. Breathing requires air, not a profession of belief in air. Likewise, logical reasoning requires God, not a profession of belief in Him. Of course the atheist can reason; it’s because God has made his mind and given him access to the laws of logic – and that’s the point. It’s because God exists that reasoning is possible. The atheist can reason, but within his own worldview he cannot account for his ability to reason.
The atheist might respond, “Laws of logic are conventions made up by man.” But conventions are (by definition) conventional. That is, we all agree to them and so they work – like driving on the right side of the road. But if laws of logic were conventional, then different cultures could adopt different laws of logic (like driving on the left side of the road). So, in some cultures it might be perfectly fine to contradict yourself. In some societies truth could be self-contradictory. Clearly that wouldn’t do. If laws of logic are just conventions, then they are not universal laws. Rational debate would be impossible if laws of logic were conventional, because the two opponents could simply pick different standards for reasoning. Each would be right according to his own arbitrary standard.
The atheist might respond, “Laws of logic are material – they are made of electrochemical connections in the brain.” But then laws of logic are not universal; they would not extend beyond the brain. In other words, we couldn’t argue that contradictions cannot occur on Mars, since no one’s brain is on Mars. In fact, if the laws of logic are just electrochemical connections in the brain, then they would differ somewhat from person to person, because everyone has different connections in their brain.
Sometimes an atheist will attempt to answer with some pragmatic response: “We use the laws of logic because they work.” Unfortunately for him, that isn’t the question. We all agree the laws of logic work; they work because they’re true. The question is why do they exist in the first place? How can the atheist account for absolute standards of reasoning like the laws of logic? How can non-material things like laws exist if the universe is material only?
As a last resort, the atheist may give up a strictly materialistic view and agree that there are immaterial, universal laws. This is a huge concession; after all, if a person is willing to concede that immaterial, universal, unchanging entities can exist, then he must consider the possibility that God exists. But this concession does not save the atheist’s position. He must still justify the laws of logic. Why do they exist? And what is the point of contact between the material physical world and the immaterial world of logic? In other words, why does the material universe feel compelled to obey immaterial laws? The atheist cannot answer these questions. His worldview cannot be justified; it is arbitrary and thus irrational.

Clearly, atheism is not a rational worldview. It is self-refuting because the atheist must first assume the opposite of what he is trying to prove in order to be able to prove anything. Laws of logic require the existence of God – and not just any god, but the Christian God. Only God of the Bible can be the foundation for knowledge (Proverbs 1:7; Colossians 2:3). Since the God of Scripture is immaterial, sovereign, and beyond time, it makes sense to have laws of logic, that are immaterial, universal, and unchanging. Since God has revealed Himself to man, we are able to know and use logic. Since God made the universe and since God made our minds, it makes sense that our minds would have an ability to study and understand the universe. But if the brain is simply the result of mindless evolutionary processes that conveyed some sort of survival value in the past, why should we trust its conclusions? If the universe and our minds are simply the results of time and chance, as the atheist contends, why would we expect that the mind could make sense of the universe? How could science and technology be possible?
Rational thinking, science and technology make sense in a Christian worldview. The Christian has a basis for these things; the atheist does not. This is not to say that atheists cannot be rational about some things. They can because they too are made in God’s image and have access to God’s laws of logic. But they have no rational basis for rationality within their own worldview. Likewise, atheists can be moral, but they have no basis for that morality according to what they claim to believe. An atheist is a walking bundle of contradictions. He reasons and does science, yet he denies the very God that makes reasoning and science possible. On the other hand, the Christian worldview is consistent and makes sense of human reasoning and experience.

[Heartless Angel]

I am thoroughly impressed by your ability to beat that many words out of what is essentially you restating the same premise I just finished rejecting (albeit with a lot of scriptural fluff) while not actually addressing any point I made. This isn't an engligh class, man, you don't have to hit a certain word count.

Your entire argument still relies upon the premise that god is the only possible source of logic, but as I already clearly explained, the presumption of god alone is insufficient to infer the existence of logic, as inference requires that you've already presumed the existence of logic in the same way an atheist does.

Your argument for the existence of logic can be formalized as follows.

If and only if there is God, there is logic.
There is God.
Therefore there is logic.

Problem, this argument requires logic. Without logic, there is no therefore. Without applying logic, the only thing we can do is scan your premises to see if they include "there is logic". They don't, so unless you add that in, your argument does not function. And WHEN you add that in, your argument becomes...

If and only if there is God, there is logic.
There is God.
There is logic.
Therefore, there is logic.

This argument is now explicitly circular, and is therefore useless. Worse still, it's first two premises are now redundant. Removing them, you would be left with...

There is logic
Therefore there is logic.

We can remove the redundancies of your religion, and we are left with the same circular argument. So not only did your religious views fail to support your conclusions, they were actually entirely irrelevant. This means. in fact, that the atheist does NOT have to presume god to utilize logic, as your religious premises do nothing at all to support the existence of logic. The cornerstone of your entire argument fails. No rambling wall of scripture can fix that. Repeating the same flawed argument doesn't make it any less flawed.

[LANA]

It would actually be better if You looked at Your false worldview. Then, hopefully, You would see the failures of it to provide preconditions of intelligibility.
And no, You didn't clearly explain. You just have a 'blind faith' that nature is uniform or that laws of logic exist and will operate more or less in the same way tomorrow. But You have no basis for any of this, no justification. As with all the false worldviews actually (fantasies), made up just to escape the clear revelation of the Maker of this universe, that is all around You (in creation) and in You (in consciousness, suppressed willfully by rebellious mind). You are still without excuse on the day of judgement. You know very well that God exists and that You are guilty of violating His law.
You said about correspondence theory of truth, but how do You know what's real?
Where do the laws of logic come from? Where does the information come from? How life came to be? How can You as an atheist know anything and justify it?

[Heartless Angel]

I've presumed the preconditions of intelligibility just as you have. I just skipped a few of your irrelevant presumptions as they did nothing to improve the system. Nobody has any justification for those presumptions. You think you do, but they've proven invalid.

I know that you believe that I 'know' god exists. I also know that you are wrong, because I don't, and never have.

I don't. That's why we generally don't discuss correspondent truth. We work within a framework of coherent truth, because that is all we as humans are capable of attaining.

The laws of logic are an emergent property of a reality that follows consistent rules. If reality can not contradict itself, true statements about reality also can't contradict themselves. Logic is a thing we discover by observing the interactions of things in this world to understand its rules.
To what information are you referring?
I don't know the origin of life. Neither do you. The only difference between us is that I'm comfortable admitting it.
I can't know anything to be correspondently true. Again, neither can you, I'm just more willing to admit it. I can attain coherent knowledge by presuming a few basic axioms, what you call the preconditions of intelligibility. By assuming that reality follows consistent rules, that I am capable of accurately perceiving it, and that I really have experienced the things I remember experiencing, I can construct a web of beliefs based upon my observations and logic. The same assumptions you had to make long before you began attempting to retroactively justify them as acts of divinity.

[LANA]

If the laws of logic are just property, then what is the justification for them to apply in the future? Since chance is also a property of the universe in Your worldview. So on what basis You assume the laws of logic are not going to change ?
Are You also implying that logic is man-made?
About information, let's say first DNA in first living creature. Where did that come from?
Just because You don't know the origins of life, it doesn't mean that no one else does. How much of the total knowledge there is, You possess, to make such a claim?
If nobody has justification, then how and even why can You justify any of Your claims? Isn't that a blind faith in preconditions of intelligibility on Your side?
And still, if You follow that truth is what is real, then how do You know what's real?




Any claim to ultimate authority must be self-authorizing. If we use any other authority by which to authorize the Bible, THAT authority then becomes our ultimate authority. For instance, if we say that we will accept the Bible as our ultimate authority only if %100 of literary scholars say it is true, then those scholars become our ultimate authority, not the Bible. Christians therefore claim the Bible as our ultimate authority by its own authority as the word of God. I’m sure many people will say: “But that’s using circular logic!” (using what is to be proven in the proof). What you must realize though, is that any claim to ultimate authority uses circularity, but not all can be (read only one is) valid.

If you are not a Christian I ask: What is your ultimate authority? Most ‘unbelievers’ have never given this question much thought but the answer is often: “My own human reason.” My question then is: “By what authority do you use human reason as your ultimate authority? “Um…my human reason?” This logic is entirely circular!

To be valid an ultimate authority must first claim ultimate authority and then prove itself internally. Lets contrast the ‘unbeliever’s’ view above with the Christian view.

The first fatal flaw of the ‘unbeliever’s’ view is that it is completely arbitrary, (totally up to the individual), and therefore is not law-like in nature and loses any degree of necessity. If this was the case, no ultimate authority could be ‘right’ or ‘true’ and no one could be at fault for pursuing their own ultimate authority.

The second fatal flaw is the inconsistency of such a view. ‘Unbelievers’ may claim that they are their own ultimate authority but quite often (and thankfully) do not live that way when they submit to a higher authority.

That brings us to the third fatal flaw of the ‘unbeliever’s’ view on ultimate authority, the consequences of such a view. If people actually did what they often really wanted to do, and did not submit to higher authority, there would be anarchy. If, for instance, someone decided by their own reason and authority to do an evil act, there would be no reason to stop, since to them it would by definition be right and true.

Contrast these three points with the Christian belief that the Bible is God’s word and therefore our ultimate authority. First of all, the Bible as an ultimate authority is not arbitrary. It is written word that is entirely certain, and law-like in nature. Secondly, while Christians are sometimes inconsistent with their submission to the Bible as their ultimate authority, such actions are entirely consistent with the Biblical description of the depraved nature of the human condition. And thirdly, the consequences of sure laws such as ‘loving one’s enemy,’ ‘turning the other cheek,’ or ‘treating others as you would have them treat you,’ if universally adhered to, would not result in anarchy, but peace.

In addition to the above points, the Bible teaches that denying the truth about God and His word leads to ‘foolishness’ and ‘vain reasoning,’ I hope that when you examine the beliefs of other worldviews that this becomes ever more clear to you.

The Bible claims to be our ultimate authority, is the only book which makes sense of rationality and human experience, and says that rejecting the truth about God leads to foolishness. By this, the Bible claims to be the word of God (our ultimate authority), and proves it.

[Spooniest]

But can it help me get to work on time when there's construction?

In all seriousness, if you want to edify someone's spirit, why don't you just buy them a hamburger and listen to them talk about themselves? Christianity has a tenet of humility of spirit that I don't think you are quite up on, LANA. You seem to enjoy reading your own posts very much, not to put too fine a point on it.

You are either trying to irritate people on purpose (trolling) and refuse to break character, which I very strongly suspect you are, or you are obsessed with the ideas YOU have about God, which YOU refuse to open up to any kind of real criticism or debate in your mind.

Tell me this; if God wanted robots, he could have made robots. But he didn't. He made self-aware beings, ourselves, whom have many choices in life. Now, many of those choices are what we would call "ethical choices," what you might call "choices between right and wrong." Lewis was fond of saying that God prefers right behavior over wrong behavior, it is one of the qualities this Benevolent Omipotent Creator possesses, according to the Bible.

What about choices that do not involve ethics? Should I get a job as a burger flipper, a construction worker, or should I aim higher, like try to get a job as an administrative assistant? What job should I get? Where should I go for lunch? Should I buy cleaning supplies now, or wait till the next paycheck, to make sure I have money in case I suddenly get a flat tire?

Wisdom and thought are not what you are preaching. Your sermons are entirely centered around morality, which is the only issue you think God is concerned with.

Now, if you do not acknowledge what I have said and provide an interesting counterpoint, I am unsubbing every single thread you are posting in because I don't want to be trolled by your Pollyanna Pain-in-the-ass Christianity and Water Posts anymore.

[Heartless Angel]

If the laws of logic are just property, then what is the justification for them to apply in the future? Since chance is also a property of the universe in Your worldview. So on what basis You assume the laws of logic are not going to change?

Are You also implying that logic is man-made?

If the laws of the universe aren't a permanent fixture, then the laws of logic as they stand today are already wrong, we just don't realize it yet. A possibility I already mentioned above. Even a chaotic universe would seem to have order if you observed only a snapshot of a single moment. There is no way for us to know that our universe follows any constant rules other than we believe we have observed said rules in action. If, however; the universe did NOT follow such rules, those observations again become meaningless. So the only two options here are: the laws of the universe are a constant and will never change, and as such the logic inherent in that system will also persist, OR, any attempt to understand the universe is doomed to failure, as our understanding requires permanent rules to the universe that do not exist. Either logic will continue to apply tomorrow, or there was never any point in discussing whether logic would apply tomorrow.

Once again you commit the same error. You ask for a justification of a presumption, when a presumption is by definition without justification.

Man-made? No. I claim that man has discovered logic, not invented it. Formalizing and verbalizing logic may well have been our work, just as formalizing and symbolizing mathematics was our work, but the underlying system is just a property of reality.

About information, let's say first DNA in first living creature. Where did that come from?
Just because You don't know the origins of life, it doesn't mean that no one else does. How much of the total knowledge there is, You possess, to make such a claim?

Nobody knows.

No, that I don't know doesn't mean that nobody does. That would be a foolish claim to make. I say nobody knows, because human beings by their very nature are incapable of correspondent knowledge. Speaking in terms of coherent truth, I can only truthfully claim that I don't know. I can also coherently claim that your belief system, or at least what parts of it you have presented, do not satisfy my criteria for knowledge, and as such, I also do not believe that you know.

If nobody has justification, then how and even why can You justify any of Your claims? Isn't that a blind faith in preconditions of intelligibility on Your side?
And still, if You follow that truth is what is real, then how do You know what's real?

I can only justify my claims IF my presumptions of the existence of logic, veracity of senses, and reliability of memory are true. I must make those presumptions. Everyone must. You do, too. You just jump through a lot of unnecessary hoops in a futile attempt to cover it up.

As I've said, I don't know what's real. Nobody does, because correspondent truth is unattainable. I know only what is coherently true.

Any claim to ultimate authority must be self-authorizing. If we use any other authority by which to authorize the Bible, THAT authority then becomes our ultimate authority. For instance, if we say that we will accept the Bible as our ultimate authority only if %100 of literary scholars say it is true, then those scholars become our ultimate authority, not the Bible. Christians therefore claim the Bible as our ultimate authority by its own authority as the word of God. I’m sure many people will say: “But that’s using circular logic!” (using what is to be proven in the proof). What you must realize though, is that any claim to ultimate authority uses circularity, but not all can be (read only one is) valid.

I'd say that's circular because it IS circular. And you're right, any claim of ultimate authority must be circular. That doesn't mean that whichever you like the most is exempt from logic, it just means that they're ALL invalid.

If you are not a Christian I ask: What is your ultimate authority? Most ‘unbelievers’ have never given this question much thought but the answer is often: “My own human reason.” My question then is: “By what authority do you use human reason as your ultimate authority? “Um…my human reason?” This logic is entirely circular!

Yes, it contains exactly the same flaw as your own worldview. The only difference is you're not performing any mental gymnastics to try to weasel out of it here.

To be valid an ultimate authority must first claim ultimate authority and then prove itself internally. Lets contrast the ‘unbeliever’s’ view above with the Christian view.

The first fatal flaw of the ‘unbeliever’s’ view is that it is completely arbitrary, (totally up to the individual), and therefore is not law-like in nature and loses any degree of necessity. If this was the case, no ultimate authority could be ‘right’ or ‘true’ and no one could be at fault for pursuing their own ultimate authority.

Not leading to your preferred conclusion isn't actually a flaw. This is, in fact, the conclusion of a skeptic's view. This is why correspondent truth is unattainable.

The second fatal flaw is the inconsistency of such a view. ‘Unbelievers’ may claim that they are their own ultimate authority but quite often (and thankfully) do not live that way when they submit to a higher authority.

I claim no ultimate authority, so this isn't a criticism of any belief I've espoused.

That brings us to the third fatal flaw of the ‘unbeliever’s’ view on ultimate authority, the consequences of such a view. If people actually did what they often really wanted to do, and did not submit to higher authority, there would be anarchy. If, for instance, someone decided by their own reason and authority to do an evil act, there would be no reason to stop, since to them it would by definition be right and true.

This is not a criticism of an idea. Your opinion of the consequences of an idea's potential truth does not affect its truth value. Reality need not appease us.

Contrast these three points with the Christian belief that the Bible is God’s word and therefore our ultimate authority. First of all, the Bible as an ultimate authority is not arbitrary. It is written word that is entirely certain, and law-like in nature. Secondly, while Christians are sometimes inconsistent with their submission to the Bible as their ultimate authority, such actions are entirely consistent with the Biblical description of the depraved nature of the human condition. And thirdly, the consequences of sure laws such as ‘loving one’s enemy,’ ‘turning the other cheek,’ or ‘treating others as you would have them treat you,’ if universally adhered to, would not result in anarchy, but peace.

Written word is the invention of man. Man penned and printed the bible. Man invented language. Man invented law. Your entire worldview is rather dependent on the idea that a lot of fallible human beings throughout history have managed to not fuck anything up here. But more than that, the bible isn't an ultimate authority. To define it as such, and to take anything from that designation, once again, you must have already presumed the same preconditions of intelligibility that I have, and your interpretation of the bible only holds water if they are true. So, contrary to what you've claimed, even within your own worldview, the authority of the bible is subservient to the 'ultimate' authority of you.

In addition to the above points, the Bible teaches that denying the truth about God and His word leads to ‘foolishness’ and ‘vain reasoning,’ I hope that when you examine the beliefs of other worldviews that this becomes ever more clear to you.

The Bible claims to be our ultimate authority, is the only book which makes sense of rationality and human experience, and says that rejecting the truth about God leads to foolishness. By this, the Bible claims to be the word of God (our ultimate authority), and proves it.

Oh I've certainly found that foolishness is the result of believing one has found correspondent truth from any other world view. But I've also found that it is the result of believing you've found it with yours, as you've demonstrated rather nicely with your acceptance of the same circular reasoning you cite as a flaw with any other system.

[Clint]

The bible isn't the word of God. Many of the books were named after the people who wrote them. God didn't write the books of Mark, Luke, and John. Mark, Luke, and John did. So you're putting all your faith on the words of people who you never met. How foolish.

[Alpha]

I love your logical brain, Heartless.

Just putting it out there, as a theist, I really dig Aquinas' Five Ways as arguments for the existence of God. Five Ways (Aquinas) - Wikipedia Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried to read Aquinas first-hand, only second-hand. I really want to read his Summa Theolgiae.

You're free to read them and argue against them, but just for my own benefit I'll restate them as I naïvely understand them and needlessly and carelessly conflate them.

The unmoved mover and the first cause: everything that will eventually exist must be caused by something that already exists. The universe exists, so either it has always existed (an infinite chain), or it was ultimately created by something that has always existed and was not itself created (God). I'm neither an astrophysicist nor a logician, but our best understanding of the origins of the universe lends support to the idea that at some point nothing physical existed, until it did. So I don't think there's sufficient evidence to support the idea that the universe has always existed. Therefore, something immaterial and/or unchanging created everything material (that is capable of change). Although I'm sure it's poorly stated by me, this is known as the cosmological argument.

Essentially, all of experiential existence is contingent on something (God) that is both non-contingent and necessary for all other existence. If you buy this argument, that gets you as far as theism. There are of course plenty of rebuttals to this argument, as there are also other arguments for theism. To progress from theism to a Christian or any other religion requires you to buy into a lot more, and ultimately requires a leap of faith, I don't think there's any point denying that. As for why I personally buy the Christian (Catholic) series of events: because I was born into a culture that told me those things, honestly. However I do still find them independently convincing and worth defending and passing on. God either exists or does not exist. If God exists, then God is all-powerful (since by definition God created everything through some mechanism). If God is all-powerful then God can choose to reveal proof of his own existence to us, or not. After accepting logical arguments for God's existence, I wondered if God had chosen to reveal himself. Lots of people have made the claim to be God incarnate, so picking Jesus is a leap of faith. But I don't think it's a particularly large leap of faith given the eye witness accounts that exist of his life and (controversial) resurrection. People claim to have seen him die, and then to have seen him alive again. Most of those who made that claim (e.g. 11 of the 12 apostles) died horrible deaths telling people what they claimed had happened. They stood to gain nothing from their claim, so I believe that they believed it. That is, I find their testimony very convincing on a personal level. Beyond that, it's also plainly remarkable how convincing this story has been to billions of other people. I'll freely admit that it it still a leap of faith to base one's life around events that (may have) happened 2000 years ago. However I also find the message that Jesus made to be worthwhile. If my alternative is atheism; that nothing exists and we don't matter; that every worthwhile, noble, true, honest and good action you have ever made is completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things... well I just find that depressing. So putting aside that I don't think that's true, I also don't want it to be true.

Incidentally, it's way easier for me to argue "Why Catholicism over Protestantism?" than "Why Theism over Atheism?", so come at me Prots.

Here's what got me: If God does not exist, then we are merely bodies without an immaterial component (no soul). If we are simply material in existence, then we are biological computers with no free will. With only a material existence, we are incapable of making "free" choices. Everything you and anyone else has ever done has been predetermined by the composition of atoms that existed before the next "frame" of existence. We're pure functions: input state, deterministic output state. (Although quantum theory appears to allow some role for pure randomness, too.) You've never done a good deed in your life because a) the concept of "good" cannot exist without a frame of reference to what is "good" (a being that is "all good" — see Aquinas' Argument from Degree) and b) you aren't actually capable of "doing" anything, and c) the concept of "you" doesn't really exist. In other words the whole system is a fiction. If God exists, and we have an immaterial component (a soul) then we have the ability to direct ourselves to make good and bad decisions because a) the concept of "good" now exists, b) you have an immaterial "driver" that exists independently of your physical being, and c) "you" really exists. I figured that in the first scenario, existence is so meaningless and depressing that I can't understand why we wouldn't all just kill ourselves (unless we lacked reason).

I find that this satisfies my intuitive understanding of self. I also find that it satisfies my innate desire for the concept of justice. If we are immaterial, pure functions incapable of truly free decision-making, etc. etc. then—and here I apologise in advance for both an incredibly crass supposition, and for obtaining the Godwin Award for World's Best Debater—Hitler did no wrong. Not because the Holocaust was good, but because Hitler had no free will. He could do no else. If the concept of "you" were to be magically transplanted into the body of Hitler, then "you" would not have been capable of doing differently than he was since you would have been subject to the same deterministic laws of physics as he was. However if Hitler acted freely and with full consent, then he acted immorally and can be rightly condemned as such by free-thinking and free-acting people who say he did an objective evil. I honestly see no other way to coherently make that argument without the existence of free will, and I see no argument for the true existence of free will that lacks an infinite creator.

Anyway, topic at hand. 10 years ago I was 18, still in high school. I eventually graduated at the top of my class. My parents were super proud of me, and I think my older brothers really jealous since they had the same education and up-bringing but didn't seem to have the same accolades I was getting. Ten years later and you realise the accolades afforded by high schools are largely a joke, although I'm still grateful for the scholarships that ultimately kept my student loan to a minimum ($18k to go!). I went through six years of university, and have now worked in my current job for 3.5 years. I earn good money and am married. I have a baby boy due to be born on December 29. Yes I'm hoping for a Christmas baby. I think my wife is just hoping to not have to be sliced open to get it out. Probably within 12 months I'll have a mortgage. I suppose the next ten years are going to be interesting. I don't expect my dad to live for another ten years (he'll be 78) but he might surprise me. Mum will live to 120 I swear; she is 68 but can yoga like a 25-year-old, you have to see it to believe it. I'll have a ten-year-old son, which is actually kind of a frightening thought.

[Heartless Angel]

I love your logical brain, Heartless.

<3 Let's bang.

Just putting it out there, as a theist, I really dig Aquinas' Five Ways as arguments for the existence of God. Five Ways (Aquinas) - Wikipedia Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried to read Aquinas first-hand, only second-hand. I really want to read his Summa Theolgiae.

You're free to read them and argue against them, but just for my own benefit I'll restate them as I naïvely understand them and needlessly and carelessly conflate them.

The unmoved mover and the first cause: everything that will eventually exist must be caused by something that already exists. The universe exists, so either it has always existed (an infinite chain), or it was ultimately created by something that has always existed and was not itself created (God). I'm neither an astrophysicist nor a logician, but our best understanding of the origins of the universe lends support to the idea that at some point nothing physical existed, until it did. So I don't think there's sufficient evidence to support the idea that the universe has always existed. Therefore, something immaterial and/or unchanging created everything material (that is capable of change). Although I'm sure it's poorly stated by me, this is known as the cosmological argument.

I'm somewhat familiar with a couple of his arguments, and have argued against other people citing them in the past, but I haven't read his work directly, either.

So I'll split the five ways up here, and address them all according to my (possibly inaccurate) understanding of them.

The unmoved mover suggests that anything that changes is being caused to change by something else, and if that something else itself is changing, it is being changed by something else, and so on. Aquinas states that because an infinite regression can't exist in reality, that there must be at least one thing that is not only unchanging, but unchangeable, to be responsible for all other change, and concludes that god must be this immutable force of change. And to be clear, there is no clear flaw in his argument for the existence of an unchanging force of change, what he suggests is entirely possible, and I would even say it's likely. But I don't believe it is sufficient to establish that thing as God. The laws of physics, as far as we know are also immutable, and are responsible for every change we know of. Furthermore, even if we accepted that an intelligence is responsible for all the change we perceive, we can't perceive him, so we couldn't say if such a being is the unmoved mover, or just the first of many moving parts that we can't measure. Aquinas takes a good first step towards understanding the nature of 'the beginning', but I don't believe he's gone far enough to draw any real conclusions about it here.

The refutation of the argument of the first cause follows essentially the same logic, as causation and change are essentially the same subject, so I won't go into much detail here.

The argument from contingency is a little more interesting. It suggests that because all things we know of have the possibility to either exist, or not exist, and they frequently change between the two, and that given infinite time, eventually the state of all things simultaneously being in a state of nonexistence would eventually be realized. He then goes on to conclude that there must therefore be at least one noncontingent thing to prevent this possibility. Now there is an important distinction that I've found a great many philosophers and philosophies overlook, and Aquinas has done so in this case. There is a difference between what is infinite, and what is all-encompassing. The simplest example that clearly shows this error is this: There are an infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 1. None of them are 2. Not only are there infinite real numbers between 0 and 1, but there are an uncountably infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 1. And yet there is an even greater uncountably infinite set of real numbers that that infinite set does not encompass. Even given the possibility and an infinite amount of time for that possibility to be realized, it does not stand to reason that it would ever be realized. Not only is it possible for that possibility to never be realized, but there are infinite number of unique ways it could fail to be realized.

The argument from degree suggests that because things exist in degrees in reality, that some of these things (namely goodness) require an absolute to use as a standard of measurement. The simplest way to refute this is again to look at numbers. We can always say that one number is greater than another, but that doesn't mean there is a number which is absolutely the greatest for us to use as a standard for greatness. We measure values on a number line which is infinite in both directions, and the closest thing we have to a standard is 0, total neutrality, rather than any absolute expression of largeness or smallness, we measure by how much it deviates from neutrality.

And lastly, the argument of the final cause, which I find to be the weakest. I find it weak, because it relies on the axiom that whatever causes non-intelligent things to behave in predictable ways must be intelligent. There's really no basis for that unless you presuppose that there is a purpose to its behavior. Consistency does not necessarily imply purpose. Any set of consistent rules would lead to a world that behaved predictably, whether those rules were painstakingly chosen by a being with a goal in mind, or chosen at complete random for no reason at all. And if you are assuming a goal, you must already be assuming someone to set a goal, because inanimate objects themselves have none.

Essentially, all of experiential existence is contingent on something (God) that is both non-contingent and necessary for all other existence. If you buy this argument, that gets you as far as theism. There are of course plenty of rebuttals to this argument, as there are also other arguments for theism. To progress from theism to a Christian or any other religion requires you to buy into a lot more, and ultimately requires a leap of faith, I don't think there's any point denying that. As for why I personally buy the Christian (Catholic) series of events: because I was born into a culture that told me those things, honestly. However I do still find them independently convincing and worth defending and passing on. God either exists or does not exist. If God exists, then God is all-powerful (since by definition God created everything through some mechanism). If God is all-powerful then God can choose to reveal proof of his own existence to us, or not. After accepting logical arguments for God's existence, I wondered if God had chosen to reveal himself. Lots of people have made the claim to be God incarnate, so picking Jesus is a leap of faith. But I don't think it's a particularly large leap of faith given the eye witness accounts that exist of his life and (controversial) resurrection. People claim to have seen him die, and then to have seen him alive again. Most of those who made that claim (e.g. 11 of the 12 apostles) died horrible deaths telling people what they claimed had happened. They stood to gain nothing from their claim, so I believe that they believed it. That is, I find their testimony very convincing on a personal level. Beyond that, it's also plainly remarkable how convincing this story has been to billions of other people. I'll freely admit that it it still a leap of faith to base one's life around events that (may have) happened 2000 years ago. However I also find the message that Jesus made to be worthwhile. If my alternative is atheism; that nothing exists and we don't matter; that every worthwhile, noble, true, honest and good action you have ever made is completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things... well I just find that depressing. So putting aside that I don't think that's true, I also don't want it to be true.

That's cool, as long as you acknowledge that it's a leap of faith. You'e more than adequately justified belief, so as long as you don't claim anything beyond that, I really don't have any reason to criticize.

Here's what got me: If God does not exist, then we are merely bodies without an immaterial component (no soul). If we are simply material in existence, then we are biological computers with no free will. With only a material existence, we are incapable of making "free" choices. Everything you and anyone else has ever done has been predetermined by the composition of atoms that existed before the next "frame" of existence. We're pure functions: input state, deterministic output state. (Although quantum theory appears to allow some role for pure randomness, too.) You've never done a good deed in your life because a) the concept of "good" cannot exist without a frame of reference to what is "good" (a being that is "all good" — see Aquinas' Argument from Degree) and b) you aren't actually capable of "doing" anything, and c) the concept of "you" doesn't really exist. In other words the whole system is a fiction. If God exists, and we have an immaterial component (a soul) then we have the ability to direct ourselves to make good and bad decisions because a) the concept of "good" now exists, b) you have an immaterial "driver" that exists independently of your physical being, and c) "you" really exists. I figured that in the first scenario, existence is so meaningless and depressing that I can't understand why we wouldn't all just kill ourselves (unless we lacked reason).

I find that this satisfies my intuitive understanding of self. I also find that it satisfies my innate desire for the concept of justice. If we are immaterial, pure functions incapable of truly free decision-making, etc. etc. then—and here I apologise in advance for both an incredibly crass supposition, and for obtaining the Godwin Award for World's Best Debater—Hitler did no wrong. Not because the Holocaust was good, but because Hitler had no free will. He could do no else. If the concept of "you" were to be magically transplanted into the body of Hitler, then "you" would not have been capable of doing differently than he was since you would have been subject to the same deterministic laws of physics as he was. However if Hitler acted freely and with full consent, then he acted immorally and can be rightly condemned as such by free-thinking and free-acting people who say he did an objective evil. I honestly see no other way to coherently make that argument without the existence of free will, and I see no argument for the true existence of free will that lacks an infinite creator.

As you probably know after years of putting up with me in the ID section, I'm a moral nihilist. so I won't go into specific detail on moral implications, because to me that was never a relevant consideration to my worldview. With regards to free will, I'm what you'd call a hard indeterminist... And also a huge Rush fan so I'm listening to Freewill now. Hard indeterminism is the theory that the universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic, but that free will still does not exist, as being at the mercy of random chance is no more 'free' than being at the mercy of determinism. Quantum physics strongly implies that at the smallest level, the universe behaves probabilistically, but seems to be deterministic, because though probabilistic, there are finite constraints to the possibilities, and given the sheer sampling size, the set of 'rolls' that we see in our lives has very little sampling error.

With regards to how that affects choice, consequence, or the idea of responsibility, I can't say that it really matters. As we aren't capable of understanding the underlying calculations, it doesn't really matter if they're happening. From our perspectives, we're still making choices. If we were to really accept determinism at the core of our beings, we would have no motivation to act. We could just sit down and wait for the casual forces of the universe to propel our bodies into action. We don't though, so even someone like me ultimately makes choices. While there may be no FREE will, there is still will, and we still have to deal with it in whatever ways we are able.

Anyway, topic at hand. 10 years ago I was 18, still in high school. I eventually graduated at the top of my class. My parents were super proud of me, and I think my older brothers really jealous since they had the same education and up-bringing but didn't seem to have the same accolades I was getting. Ten years later and you realise the accolades afforded by high schools are largely a joke, although I'm still grateful for the scholarships that ultimately kept my student loan to a minimum ($18k to go!). I went through six years of university, and have now worked in my current job for 3.5 years. I earn good money and am married. I have a baby boy due to be born on December 29. Yes I'm hoping for a Christmas baby. I think my wife is just hoping to not have to be sliced open to get it out. Probably within 12 months I'll have a mortgage. I suppose the next ten years are going to be interesting. I don't expect my dad to live for another ten years (he'll be 78) but he might surprise me. Mum will live to 120 I swear; she is 68 but can yoga like a 25-year-old, you have to see it to believe it. I'll have a ten-year-old son, which is actually kind of a frightening thought.

Wait, there was another topic going on here?

[Alpha]

With regards to how that affects choice, consequence, or the idea of responsibility, I can't say that it really matters. As we aren't capable of understanding the underlying calculations, it doesn't really matter if they're happening. From our perspectives, we're still making choices. If we were to really accept determinism at the core of our beings, we would have no motivation to act. We could just sit down and wait for the casual forces of the universe to propel our bodies into action. We don't though, so even someone like me ultimately makes choices. While there may be no FREE will, there is still will, and we still have to deal with it in whatever ways we are able.

I remember reading some philosopher who denied free will in even more certain terms than you. I remember thinking at the time that I would agree with them if only they agreed with themself.

[Spooniest]

"He was born a pauper to a pawn
On a Christmas Day
When the New York Times said
'God is dead,*
The war's begun,
Alan Tostig has a son today...'
And he shall be LEVON,
And he shall be a good man!
And he shall be LEVON,
In tradition with the family plan!
And he shall be LEVON,
And he shall be a good man!
He...shall...be...Le...von..."



*That is, God is dead as a subject for discussion. The New York Times did not mean to imply that the being Himself was dead. Sorry your widdle feewings got hurt. Get used to it. God isn't going to make life pretty and easy for you, because God's not a milquetoast.

[OnOneRyder]

Hey strangers

10 years ago I was a child in a grown man's shoes. I was loud and abusive, and as usually the case scared and insecure. It's been an interesting decade, done many things I'd never have expected and failed to do others. Happy where I am, feel more youthful and capable as ever. Hope the next 10 I can do and see more.

[blackiysto]

So spooniest was either shoved into a washing machine, or was a dj.


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