Can we trust what God says?

[Cerebrum123]

Soil receptiveness correlates to the sower's intellectual integrity. If you're a conspiracy theorist science denier, you're already erecting a wall of mistrust. Either that, or you're setting yourself up for major fail if the person you're witnessing to paid attention in high school science.

That's not what the parable says at all. It says nothing about even attempting to make the "soil" better, only about spreading the "seed".

[shunyadragon]

That's not what the parable says at all. It says nothing about even attempting to make the "soil" better, only about spreading the "seed".

I disagree. like the parable of keeping the wicks trimmed and oil lamps full, these parables urge people to be come more open and aware to future happenings and knowledge. This may or may not involve change. The world of knowledge has changed constantly over the millennia, and people who are not willing to change remain living in the past paradigms.

[Cerebrum123]

I disagree. like the parable of keeping the wicks trimmed and oil lamps full, these parables urge people to be come more open and aware to future happenings and knowledge. This may or may not involve change. The world of knowledge has changed constantly over the millennia, and people who are not willing to change remain living in the past paradigms.

Different parable. That one's not what you claim it's about either. It's about being prepared, in this case it appears to about being prepared for Christ's return.

[seer]

Because he started with a literalist view and polevaulted over the associated difficulties. "God said it, I believe it, that settles it" isn't going to win souls.

Parable of the sower.

No, he started with God, yes God as revealed in His word. What do you start with whag? And it is not Mr. Black's job to win souls per-say. Also, just because you don't find his argument compelling it doesn't mean that others don't.

[whag]

No, he started with God, yes God as revealed in His word.

More specifically, he started with a fundamentalist conception of God. He's going to have a rough go of it when he realizes the earth is ancient and he's a primate.

What do you start with whag?

The best way to start is with corporeal reality, then process the truth from there. If you deny reality up front, life will slap you across the face when you encounter people who are well acquainted with the facts of nature.

And it is not Mr. Black's job to win souls per-say.

Yes, it is his job to help convert people. That's why he's here.

Also, just because you don't find his argument compelling it doesn't mean that others don't.

Yes, but the only others he'll persuade are naive folk who'll lose their faith. The idea is to prepare them, not throw them to the wolves like you're doing. You both should be ashamed of yourselves.

[whag]

That's not what the parable says at all. It says nothing about even attempting to make the "soil" better, only about spreading the "seed".

Do you even go to church? The whole point of a sermon is to extrapolate from parables and apply what Jesus says to real life. If you merely "spread seed" everywhere you go without giving a thought to establishing trust and demonstrating a grasp of reality, you're not doing it right.

Anyone can be a street preacher and hand out Jack Chick tracts. There's an arrogance in assuming people don't listen to you "because their hearts are hard" rather than your approach sucks.

Any pastor worth his salt would extract that from the parable.

[Cerebrum123]

Do you even go to church?

An actual church building, no, I have a physical disability.

The whole point of a sermon is to extrapolate from parables and apply what Jesus says to real life. If you merely "spread seed" everywhere you go without giving a thought to establishing trust and demonstrating a grasp of reality, you're not doing it right.

No, the point of the sermon was to teach something. What we are supposed to do is figure out what was intended. There's a word for "extrapolating" something not taught at all, it's called eisegesis, look it up. I never said that trust wasn't important, I never even said that I didn't understand what YOU are trying to say, I understand it entirely. It's just the that Parable of the Sower does not teach what you are claiming.

Anyone can be a street preacher and hand out Jack Chick tracts. There's an arrogance in assuming people don't listen to you "because their hearts are hard" rather than your approach sucks.

Chick tracts, really?
I'm not even talking about my approach, I'm talking about the parable, and what it means. Maybe you should at least understand who you're talking to before going on these rants, it will make you look less foolish.

Oh, and then there's the fact that there really are people with hard hearts.

Any pastor worth his salt would extract that from the parable.

How about you demonstrate that by, I don't know, citing a commentary, or something. Again, you aren't a theologian, not even a Christian, why should I think you have a better understanding of the text than those who study it?

[shunyadragon]

Different parable. That one's not what you claim it's about either. It's about being prepared, in this case it appears to about being prepared for Christ's return.

I did not say it was not a different parable. Please reread the whole post. I said both parables may indicate the need for change.

[Cerebrum123]

I did not say it was not a different parable. Please reread the whole post. I said both parables may indicate the need for change.

The assertion that the first involves what you claim hasn't even come close to being demonstrated, neither has the second. I read your whole post, and it's lacking coherency on the whole. First you assert one thing without supporting evidence, then you bring in a different parable. You don't even support that it means what you think it means. If you think these parables mean something other than I said, you need to explain why.

[seer]

More specifically, he started with a fundamentalist conception of God. He's going to have a rough go of it when he realizes the earth is ancient and he's a primate.

Really whag? Are you positive that the earth is that old and that we are evolved primates? Science is never wrong?

The best way to start is with corporeal reality, then process the truth from there. If you deny reality up front, life will slap you across the face when you encounter people who are well acquainted with the facts of nature.

No, what I deny is that unaided nature is a good ground or source for an intelligible universe or rational beings. A rational Creator is.

[Mr. Black]

Why would you think I was serious about that?

Then please give a serious answer to the question, or else be consistent with your own admissions.

1.) If you could be wrong about everything you claim to know, then you have no basis for making any claim at all---not even the claim that it's "likely" that you're right, as you'd have to have a standard of absolute certainty by which the measure the respective probability of each given claim (you couldn't know which proposition is closer to the truth if you already have some truth by which to compare it).
2.) If you wanna say that there's something you can't be wrong about, then please justify that claim. That involves presenting---from your worldview---an ontic base to ground the preconditions of intelligibility, which you appeal to, and an epistemology which makes that base known.

[Mr. Black]

You simply deny any other ontic base,

At present I've yet to see one. All I've seen is tha claim that scientific findings, or perhaps the facts that derive from the uniformity of nature, are somehow the ontic base which make nature uniform. You need to present an explanation as to what determines the nature, limits and scope of the universe, why it behaves the way it does, whether the laws of logic and the laws of physics apply everywhere, whether they have all throughout history, and how in the world you could possibly know for sure if they'll hold anywhere in the future. That involves an ontic base (which determines the nature of the universe and the laws which "govern" it, and epistemology which makes that base known---otherwise it's conjecture.

...but yours, which is begging the question asserting [B]God is the ontic base in my worldview,

No, I'm saying that (1) God is the ontic base in my worldview, and that (2) my worldview is the actual state of affairs. If it were not, you couldn't make sense of your claims.
Far from denying you the ability to hold to your own worldview, I'd like you to do that. Stand upon your worldview. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it's true. Now let's ask the question, how do you know anything? At all? To any degree of probability? Please name the standard(s) by which one comes to have certainty in your worldview, how you know they apply everywhere and are unchanging.

Could you be wrong about this???

No.

1.) Prove this please.

It's proven by the impossibility of the contrary (rejecting it leads to absurdity, while arguing against it utilizes principles for reasoning and facts which can only exist if the view you want to object were true, thus making your rebuttals self-refuting. I understand if you want to disagree, but to disagree is to take the position that knowledge is possible in a non-biblical world. So to justify your disagreement you need to demonstrate that knowledge is possible apart from the Christian God. That calls for the presentation of the requisite ontic base and corresponding epistemology.

2.) Are you absolutely sure that your proof for this claim proves it?

Yes.

You didn't answer my questions btw.

[Mr. Black]

Mr. Black is going about this theism thing completely assbackwards.

This level of naivete is unworthy of a man of your intelligence, whag. You're so obstinate that you can't stop your automatic nay-saying long enough to note the kind of argument that your opponent is using. Let's look at a couple key definitions.

Principle: a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived.

Theorem: a proposition that can be deduced from the premises or assumptions of a system.

Deductive arguments assume commonly accepted principles, and using those principles, assert premises, and then upon those premises, assert a theorem. Transcendental arguments, on the other hand, go deeper than that. When a proposed principle is not accepted by both parties, a proof for that principle is in order. TAs recognize and point out the necessity of a certain principle (or set of principles) without which no theorem can be reasoned to at all. Ergo TAs are, by definition, about starting point principles, not theorems. Your criticism here conflates the transcendental argument I'm using with a deductive argument, resulting in a straw man fallacy (albeit this seems to be unwitting on your part).

[Mr. Black]

All I can do is ask you to do is to give satisfactory reasons to support your presupposition that God is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of human experience. I order to argue the point, I need reasoned explanations from you, not assertions.

There seems to be some confusion on your part. This reply from you wreaks of (probably unwitting) straw man and equivocation. Presuppers use a very specific definition of "presupposition", and your criticism here seems to have not taken this into account. Please define what you mean by that term here.

I will refute your argument as soon as you give justification for your presupposition that God is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of human experience.

Please see above.

No you didn't you presented a transcendental assertion based on a presupposition of necessity without reasoned justification.

Really? Tell me, what is "reasoned justification" for a transcendental argument?

Heres the problem that i keep harping on Mr. Black. The above begins with the presupposition that "God is the necessary precondition for intelligibility of human experience, he is the ontic base, all facts are derived of him, if he did not exist knowledge would not be possible on mans part. You don't produce an iota of evidence nor of reason to back up the assertions that you make, its all mere assertion based upon the presupposition. You make no argument for why this must be so. So give me reasons why God is the necessary precondition for intelligibility? And then give me reasons why knowledge on mans part would not be possible without a God.

Please see above. This confusion can be cleared up by examining what you mean you say that no argument or "reasoned justification" has been given for the TA I'm using.

Thats easy Mr. Black.

Is it? Let's see...

The laws of logic are grounded in nature.

1.) What is nature?
2.) How do you know about nature?
3.) How do you know that your fallible senses by which you perceive the natural world are reporting information that corresponds to reality, and are not illusion?
4.) Even if you could, by some miracle, know that your sensory organs are reliable, since you haven't experienced all of nature, or all moments of time, how do you know that the laws of logic apply everywhere in nature?
5.) How do you know that nature is not in a state of delayed flux, and won't change tomorrow (or 1 minute from now)?

All things are from, through and to nature.

How do you know this?

Nature cannot contradict itself

How do you know this? Did nature speak to you? Did it write an authoritative book on the matter? Have you empirically observed it? How does one empirically observe potentiality?

Nature cannot lie.

Nature can neither lie nor "tell the truth" as nature is not a person. Saying that nature "tells" us things is the fallacy of reification, attributing a personal characteristic to an abstraction, in this case the concept of nature.

Nature never changes.

Really? Have you been everywhere and at all times so that you can verify this claim of yours? Even if you had, it's one thing to say that nature has not changed, but it's entirely another thing to say that nature cannot change. Even if you could verify the first, how would go about verifying the second?

He can assert that contradictions can't take place in nature in the same way that you assert the same with reference to God.

Asserting it is one thing. Rationally justifying the assertion is another. And if you want to repeat your claim that I've not rationally justified my above claims regarding God, I again ask you to explain how a TA is given "reasoned justification". It seems to me you've misunderstood the nature of TAs.

I agree, they comport with reality and reality comports with them.

Please see above, and explain how one can know what reality is, let alone what does, or does not, comport with it.

why is God necessary for this harmonious relationship between mind and the world it is immersed in to work?

I gave the explanation last time, and instead of refuting it, you've ignored it. Please see my previous comment to you.

No, i want you to back up your assertions with a modicum of reason. For example, explain why your presupposition...

Again, please define what you mean by "presupposition" here, and explain what sort of reasons are given in support of a TA. You talk of TAs, but your responses indicate that you believe you're dealing with a deductive argument. Two very different things.

...that God is the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of human experience is necessarily true?

It's proven by the impossibility of the contrary. Denying it leads to utter absurdity, and for any rebuttal against it, the dissenter must appeal to, and depend upon, principles for reasoning which only the worldview he's attempting to disprove can account for.

Because they are consistent dude.

Fallacy of irrelevant thesis. I have dreams that are consistent. That doesn't make them real.

Because they correspond to everyone elses perceptions.

Do you honestly not notice the hidden assumption in your response here? How do you know about other people, let alone their sense perceptions? Via your own sense perceptions---but the reliability of your sense perceptions is the very thing at issue. You have begged the question.

If all of our perceptions are consistent then it doesn't matter if it is some kind of an illusion, its our reality.

This is totally irrational, and no one can live consistently with this.

Also, I couldn't help but notice that you didn't answer my question regarding the two circles illustration. Since you don't know all things, and you've denied Revelation from God, who does know all things, how can you be sure that none of the many facts "out there" will refute anything or everything you claim to know---including your above claims about nature?

[whag]

If you wanna say that there's something you can't be wrong about, then please justify that claim.

Science doesn't make that claim. Only you and your fundamentalist brethren do, and to your peril.

How did you adopt your skepticism about scientific epistemology? I gather you were raised a Christian or got sucked into conservative Christianity somewhere along the line.