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This forum is open discussion between atheists and all theists to defend and debate their views on religion or non-religion. Please respect that this is a Christian-owned forum and refrain from gratuitous blasphemy. VERY wide leeway is given in range of expression and allowable behavior as compared to other areas of the forum, and moderation is not overly involved unless necessary. Please keep this in mind. Atheists who wish to interact with theists in a way that does not seek to undermine theistic faith may participate in the World Religions Department. Non-debate question and answers and mild and less confrontational discussions can take place in General Theistics.
Forum Rules: Here
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Can we trust what God says?
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Originally posted by whag View PostIt makes sense because epistemology is the method by which God delivers information about the universe. Evangelicals who deny that there are methods of extracting reliable knowledge deny the general revelation itself in favor of the special revelation. The general revelation threatens all that they've been taught.Last edited by seer; 09-14-2014, 04:12 PM.Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by seer View PostOn any given theory we never have all the facts. And science is always in flux
Originally posted by seer View Postwho knows what it will be saying 200 years from now - do you?
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Originally posted by whag View Posti dunno. Darwin was 150 years ago, and the theory got stronger. cosmology's learned a lot, too. we certainly won't be kicking ourselves for concluding cosmic and biological evolution, as you're obviously suggesting.Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by Mr. Black View PostYou changed your answer to my original question
Originally posted by Mr. Black View Postand have claimed to know some things with certainty
Originally posted by Mr. Black View PostTaking that logic for a test spin, suppose a dictator says that, unless you can show him reason to believe that he's not intrinsically better than you, he has the right to rape, torture and kill your family. When asked how he knows he's intrinsically better, he simply says, "I presuppose it". Would that be rational in your book?
This answer is a bit vague, so lemme clarify a little.
1.) What is the ontic base which grounds the preconditions of intelligibility in your worldview, and guarantees that they always have been so, and will remain so in the future?
2.) What is the epistemology in your worldview which makes your proposed ontic base known?[/QUOTE]
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Originally posted by Mr. Black View Post1.) What is the ontic base which grounds the preconditions of intelligibility in your worldview, and guarantees that they always have been so, and will remain so in the future?
2.) What is the epistemology in your worldview which makes your proposed ontic base known?
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Originally posted by seer View PostThe fact is you can not know. You think the theory is safe, but we have no idea if it will remain the same in the years to come. For instance, like was mentioned on another board, if we started to find modern mammal fossils in Precambrian strata the whole theory is pretty much out the window. The main point though is that special Revelation will always trump general revelation since the latter is based on limited, often flawed, knowledge.
Your scientific outlook is a mess. You're hanging on to the hope that humans will be found in the Precambrian. Seriously, dude?
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Originally posted by shunyadragon View PostThis is an argument against uniformity with an argument from ignorance.Last edited by Mr. Black; 09-15-2014, 12:49 AM.Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (1 Corinthians 1:20)
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Originally posted by Scrawly View Post...how could one ever conclude that said revelation is simply made up/fabricated if they utilize a presuppositional stance?
For example, say one day long, long ago Mr. White decided, with malicious intent, or perhaps based upon sincere delusions, to create a "holy book" which mirrored the biblical attributes of God. This God of Mr. White's imagination, let's call him Zork, was equal to the biblical God in truth, power, morality, etc. and thereby provided the preconditions for intelligibility and what not. However, this God, Zork, was nothing more than a figment of Mr. White's imagination. So faced with Mr. White's God Zork and the Biblical God:
Originally posted by Scrawly View Post1) How would you determine who is the true God that provides true revelation?
But that's not demonstration, is it? All men know God and are without excuse for denying Him (Romans 1:18-22). Yet God has placed a moral requirement on us to defend Him and His Word from so-called "rational" attacks (1 Peter 3:15), not because there's anything out there that poses a rational danger to His truth, but because "destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God" and "taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5) glorifies God, and He deserves that.
Originally posted by Scrawly View Post2) How would the presuppositional argumentation utilized by Zork's followers be any different from the presuppositional argumentation that you are utilizing to defend the Biblical God?
If this other god had all the attributes of the biblical God, then it would have to be a triune, transcendent, holy, just, timeless, spaceless, changeless, immaterial, uncaused, infinitely powerful, fully consistent, logical, and honest Creator of everything outside of Himself. Further, since one of the preconditions of intelligibility is an honest assessment of man's depravity (explaining why humans are so bent on evil), and the solution for that depravity to reunite man to his holy and just Creator, this other god would had to have come down and freely chosen to take the attribute of substitutionary sacrificial lamb onto himself. This would represent an attempt to ape Christinity---to copy it just enough so that they can (they think) have an excuse to deny the true God. In other words, this "other god" is in fact the same God as the God of the Bible, just with a different name attached. They may try to save their little trick question by saying that some things happened differently in that book's history, like, say, Jonah was never sent to Nineveh. But this isn't a significant change in worldview (i.e., it doesn't consitute a different God), it simply represents a request that we think counterfactually about some of God's past choices that don't effect foundational doctrines, nor the preconditions of intelligibility.
But I suspect your concern runs a little deeper. I think what you're getting at is the idea that someone may come along and ask, Who's to say there's not another worldview that can do the same? I was gonna type out the answer completely in my own words, but I really like the way the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen put it in his audio course on transcendental arguments, so I'll copy/paste that section below, and then provide my own summary.
Objection : "How do you snow that there's not another worldview out there that works?"
Let me give two different kinds of answers for this, both of which supplement each other.
Reply #1: In the nature of the case there can only be one transcendental. In the nature of the case, the talk about two separate (and by "separate" I mean having different content) worldviews doing this, is nonsense in itself. It's basically saying there are two ultimate authorities. But there can't be two ultimate authorities, or they wouldn't be ultimate, right? So when somebody says, "Yeah, Christianity does the Job. We can make sense out of science, we can make sense out of logic, we can make sense of morality, & human dignity, blah blah blah blah blah. It does the job, but maybe there will be another worldview that can do the job too", we can say, "Well, in the nature of the case, you can't have two ultimately authoritative worldviews. In the nature of the case, you can't have two transcendentals for meaningfulness." Why? Because if there are two, what have you lost? Unity. Coherence, unity, & continuity is the name of the game here. Meaningfulness and intelligibility means coherence; it means there's one system of truth. If there were two transcendentals you wouldn't have one system of truth, you'd have two. And then what would you have to ask? "What's the relationship between the two systems?" If they're different then you don't have unity. If they're the same, with the names changed, then we don't have to worry about it. It's just a linguistic variation.
Shall I go over that again? The nature of the transcendental program is to find unity and coherence in all of our experience. So you can't have two ultimate authorities; you can't have two systems of truth, because if you have two you no longer have coherence, you no longer have unity. You have to ask the question, "What is the relationship between these two?" And the relationship is either (1) that of identity, under different names, or else (2) diversity. If they're diverse then you no longer have
coherence or unity in your worldview.
To make sense of the claim that there are two systems by which the facts can be made intelligible requires another system in terms of which you're saying that about the two. But you see, if these two are, ex-hypothesi, the ultimate transcendentals for meaningfulness, we can't get behind them to have the one that unites the two (and by "unites" I simply mean to make intelligible that there are two; to even talk about the two there needs to be one perspective in terms of which you talk about the two). But these two that you talk about are, by definition, ultimate. And so there can't be a one that unites the two even to talk about their relationship. So, when somebody says "How do you know there can't be another one out there?", We say "In the nature of the case there can't be another one out there. There can only be one ultimate transcendental worldview, because if there were two it wouldn't be a an ultimate transcendental worldview; you'd have to have one behind it that, in one way or another, making it possible to talk about the two."
That's one way of answering. Let me give you another approach.
Reply #2: The Christian worldview, in the nature of the case, has to be the only worldview that works. If it works, it must be the only one that works. Why? Because it claims to be the only one.
That claim is either true, or it's false. If it's true, then there aren't any other ones. If it's false, then Christianity is not a worldview that will work. So if there is one transcendental, and it's Christianity, then it must be the only one, because internally it claims to be the only one.
Sometimes you'll feel like you've got a good grasp of that, and other times it'll seem real real slippery and you'll think "How does the fact that it says it's the only one establish it?" Because you're granting that it really is a transcendental of meaningfulness. If it really is, then you're granting that it's a true worldview. But if you're granting that it's a true worldview, then its claims must be...what? True. And one of its claims is that it's the only one. If that claim is wrong, then the worldview is not, as a whole, true, in which case it can't be a worldview that's a transcendental for meaningfulness. The objection we're dealing with assumes that there can be two true worldviews ultimately. But on this assumption Christianity couldn't be true, because Christianity says there's only one. That's what I call an internal demonstration that Christianity has to be the only one.
Student Question: "Wouldn't the person that asks that question also have to provide a worldview in which he could make that question intelligible?"
Bahnsen's Anwser: "In a sense what you're saying is what I was getting at at the end of my first approach to this. You'd have to now have a meta-transcendental worldview in terms of which you talk about the two worldviews being satisfactory to do the job. But if these two are the transcendentals, then there can't be anything more ultimate than them."
Question Continued: "Doesn't it go back to the issue of authority and uniqueness?"
Bahnsen's Answer Continued: "We would say 'When you raise this question, where are you standing in order to raise the question in the first place? If you're standing in the absurd worldview then I can ignore you. If you're standing in my worldview then my answer is that the Bible says it's the only one.' "
In other words,
1.) To say that another worldview/conceptual scheme justifies the preconditions of intelligibility (PoI henceforth) is to say that we can know something to be true on the basis of another worldview/conceptual scheme.
2.) And since we cannot know something to be true on the basis of that which is itself not known to be true (any conclusion that is asserted on the basis of a hypothetsis itself reduces to hypothesis), to say that another worldview/conceptual scheme, in addition to Christianity, provides the PoI is really to say that there's another worldview in addition to Christianity that's true.
3.) So the question has to be asked as to the relationship between the two. The only two options are 1.) Christianity with another name tacked onto it, or else 2.) a truly different worldview, in which case the one positing the additional worldview/conceptual scheme has lost unity in his thinking, and is now in need of a meta-transcendental worldview in terms of which to think and talk about the two, in order to even make an attempt to unite them and/or make sense of any of his thinking.
4.) But since the two worldviews he's trying to unite are themselves ultimate by definition, and since any meta-transcendental worldview/conceptual scheme would be more ultimate than the two, the suggestion reduces to absurdity.
And just as a parting note, notice that when a professed non-christian raises this sort of question its totally arbitrary. Instead of engaging with the challenge presented before them and refuting the transcendental argument, thereby providing---from their own worldview---an ontic base to ground the PoI, and an epistemology to make that base known, they instead appeal to a god they have no revelation from, and which they admit they don't even believe in. Which means that even if it's logically consistent and posits a hypothetical grounding for the preconditions of intelligibility, they still can't know anything on the basis of it, because it's pure conjecture. So when that sort of suggestion about conceptual schemes is made, I have to ask them, "On what rational basis do you (the non-christian) appeal to such a conjecture? Are you sure your cognitive faculties are working properly so that you understand the issue aright? Do you know for sure what the individual words you're employing to express your thoughts on this matter even mean? If so, how?"
Hope that helped.Last edited by Mr. Black; 09-15-2014, 12:53 AM.Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (1 Corinthians 1:20)
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Originally posted by Doug Shaver View PostNo, I haven't.
Originally posted by Doug Shaver View PostIn that situation, my opinion would be irrelevant. When my family is threatened, I get a bit irrational myself.
Originally posted by Doug Shaver View PostI have no idea what you mean by "ontic base."Last edited by Mr. Black; 09-15-2014, 02:31 AM.Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (1 Corinthians 1:20)
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Originally posted by seer View PostThe fact is you can not know. You think the theory is safe, but we have no idea if it will remain the same in the years to come. For instance, like was mentioned on another board, if we started to find modern mammal fossils in Precambrian strata the whole theory is pretty much out the window. The main point though is that special Revelation will always trump general revelation since the latter is based on limited, often flawed, knowledge.Last edited by Mr. Black; 09-15-2014, 02:26 AM.Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (1 Corinthians 1:20)
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Originally posted by whag View PostIt makes sense because epistemology is the method by which God delivers information about the universe. Evangelicals who deny that there are methods of extracting reliable knowledge deny the general revelation itself in favor of the special revelation. The general revelation threatens all that they've been taught.Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (1 Corinthians 1:20)
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Originally posted by Mr. Black View PostWhat "reliable knowledge" might this be exactly? Are you talking about the idea that man evolved slowly over millions of years---which, oddly enough, no human being has ever observed (and thus is not scientific since science involves observation)?
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Originally posted by whag View PostMan, you suck at this Christianity thing.Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by whag View PostThat the Precambrian strata has no mammals is strong evidence of evolution, complementing the thousands of other pieces of strong evidence for evolution.
Your scientific outlook is a mess. You're hanging on to the hope that humans will be found in the Precambrian. Seriously, dude?Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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