It comes down to two things. The nature of the claim and how much trust I put in the person making the claim. If the nature of the claim is not extraordinary, I might accept "I saw it for myself" from a total stranger. If it is out of the ordinary, but still likely, I might need to know the person before I accept their unsupported word. If it is both extraordinary and highly-improbable (as is the case in a miracle), I would need to put a high level of faith in the person reporting it.
So your choice between deciding whether to incorporate a personal testimony as knowledge or a faith based belief is your arbitrary judgement? Would you ever accept any person's word that a miracle happened and therefore incorporate that miracle as your personal knowledge?
It is not so much a case of fact as a case of reporting. Take the water into wine example. It is reported that Jesus turned water into wine. But what if he did nothing at all to the wine? What if he really practiced mass hypnosis on the wedding guests so that as they drank untampered water they thought they were drinking wine. I am not suggesting that is what happened. But it is a possibility insofar as the reporting of the event would be the same. Anyone there would say that water jars were filled with water and when it was drunk it tasted like wine.
Now what I would ask is whether it is important to establish whether water actually changed into wine or whether hypnosis was used instead. And I would reply "no, it isn't". For one thing we have no way of establishing what really happened. We have only one report of the event, and no counter-report or evidence.
So, what we have to decide is whether we have faith in the one who reported the event. And if we do, then we accept the event as reported even though a skeptic might dream up other possible explanations of it.
The same goes for Jesus' being raised from the dead. We have no hard-and-fast evidence of the event. We have several stories of resurrection appearances that are not terribly coherent. The one thing we know is that the apostles proclaimed that Jesus was raised from the dead and revealed as the Messiah. We believe that proclamation without evidence because we have faith in those who proclaimed it.
So, in general I accept the miracle stories of the bible, not on the basis that I have any certainty they happened as reported, but because I have placed my faith in the reliability of the witnesses, even though what they claim to have witnessed is the highly-improbable event of a miracle.
My emphasis ...
I am very curious about your apparent continuing equivocation. I just don't understand it it to be honest. How is the claim of Jesus' resurrection any different from the water/wine miracle. Are you suggesting that Jesus' resurrection may be something other then a resurrection? Mass hypnosis for example?
I am not certain what you are trying to get at here. And I find it strange that on one hand you find fault with "trivializing" and "simple" examples yet tell me at the same time that I am resorting to nuances, as if this were a bad thing. And then you refer to "the subtle nature of knowledge". Taking this as a fair characterization, one would conclude that a nuanced argument is necessary to convey it and that it is the over-simplification that belies it. All told you are not coming across as very coherent.
Incoherent? I'm disappointed. I had ample opportunity to be sarcastic through out this thread and have avoided it. Please be civil. Your specific example of induction was trivial. Your arguments using your examples, and more, was nuanced. My point is that in this portion of our thread you over simplified what knowledge was. My opinion is that you tried to make it much more clean cut, as if to portray the distinction between knowledge and faith based belief as sharper then it is. You obviously disagree. I still sleep ok.
The question is what does it mean to accept something on faith. Faith is defined as believing in the absence of evidence. But in many cases absence of evidence is not a reason to believe anything. It is only a reason to suspend judgment about something until we have more information about it.
So there is an additional quality to faith that leads to belief rather than suspended judgment. It might be worth exploring what that is. When does it become important to believe something on faith and how do we then choose what we believe?
As I tried to point out, in some cases there can be an ensemble of surrounding evidence that while not allowing you to deduce or prove your faith based belief it does make it more plausible. To take a stark example, it is more plausible to believe in a supernatural creator then it is in a unicorn. Faith based beliefs are not one large equivalence class all equally worth believing in (as atheists would have us believe). There are many other examples in the case of Christianity. As I have stated Christianity is not irrational, whimsical or delusional. Belief in unicorns is irrational.
I disagree. You can certainly deduce from faith. Paul does that over and over again in his letter to the Romans. In Chapter 6 where he discusses the meaning of baptism he argues from the premise "if we have died in Christ, we believe we will also live with him" and later concludes "So [deductive conclusion] you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore [another deductive conclusion] do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions"
Do Paul's deductions produce knowledge. This was the context of your discussion of deductions.
The question was if I agreed with your statement. I did answer it. I don't agree.
No you didn't answer the question. You disagreed with the question and thereby avoiding an answer.
So your choice between deciding whether to incorporate a personal testimony as knowledge or a faith based belief is your arbitrary judgement?
My judgment, yes. What other option does one have? But I hope that judgment is not arbitrary.
Would you ever accept any person's word that a miracle happened and therefore incorporate that miracle as your personal knowledge?
Not as knowledge, but as something I believe to be true.
How is the claim of Jesus' resurrection any different from the water/wine miracle.
It isn't, as the part you bolded clearly states.
Are you suggesting that Jesus' resurrection may be something other then a resurrection? Mass hypnosis for example?
Skeptics have suggested everything from mass hypnosis to outright fraud. One school of skeptics has suggested the whole story of Jesus was concocted by the Roman emperor Trajan. And, of course, the initial reaction from the leaders of the Jews was that the disciples had stolen the body.
Incoherent? I'm disappointed. I had ample opportunity to be sarcastic through out this thread and have avoided it. Please be civil.
I didn't mean to be uncivil. I was pointing to apparent inconsistencies in your criticism. Your fuller explanation clears that up.
My opinion is that you tried to make it much more clean cut, as if to portray the distinction between knowledge and faith based belief as sharper then it is.
Well, this is not an exercise in writing a philosophical treatise. Some over-simplification is inherent in the format of a forum discussion. I think we all tend to under-estimate how much of what we think we know is founded, fundamentally, on faith. Indeed, the question of whether we can know anything at all is a matter of philosophical faith.
As I have stated Christianity is not irrational, whimsical or delusional. Belief in unicorns is irrational.
Have you ever read St.Clement of Rome's 1st epistle to the Corinthians? St. Clement was a student of Paul's and this letter was widely circulated in the early church, and seriously considered for inclusion in the New Testament. In it St. Clement, in an appeal to nature to make a point, refers to the phoenix. There is no indication he considers the bird to be mythical or belief in its extraordinary means of reproduction to be irrational. Many Christians of past ages have not considered belief in unicorns to be any more irrational than belief in the resurrection. Are you sure you have good grounds for doing so?
Do Paul's deductions produce knowledge. This was the context of your discussion of deductions.
Deductions produce knowledge if: a) the deduction is valid and b) the premises are true. In the case of Paul's letter to the Romans, the deductions are largely valid, but the premises are believed by faith to be true, not known to be true in any other way. With the truth of the premises being matters of faith, it follows that the truth of the conclusions, though valid, are also matters of faith.
No you didn't answer the question. You disagreed with the question and thereby avoiding an answer.
To say that the question itself is not valid is still an answer.
__________________ The high, the low, all of creation God gives to humankind to use. If this privilege is misused, God's Justice permits creation to punish humanity~~ Hildegard of Bingen cited in, Earth Prayers from around the World
My judgment, yes. What other option does one have? But I hope that judgment is not arbitrary.
..
Not as knowledge, but as something I believe to be true.
The point of my question was to highlight your inconsistency in defining knowledge. You started with a sharp definition of knowledge and when asked if reading and testimony could add to your knowledge you said yes, but when questioned further you agreed that this was ambiguous because of personal judgement. This all makes my point regarding how we acquire knowledge.
It isn't, as the part you bolded clearly states.
Skeptics have suggested everything from mass hypnosis to outright fraud. One school of skeptics has suggested the whole story of Jesus was concocted by the Roman emperor Trajan. And, of course, the initial reaction from the leaders of the Jews was that the disciples had stolen the body.
This thread has been very useful in understanding parts of your theology. This does not surprise me to be honest. No offense, honestly, but my hesitation to call myself a theistic evolutionist is mainly because of the larger set of theological positions this may connote. I believe my hesitations have been justified to some extent.
Have you ever read St.Clement of Rome's 1st epistle to the Corinthians? St. Clement was a student of Paul's and this letter was widely circulated in the early church, and seriously considered for inclusion in the New Testament. In it St. Clement, in an appeal to nature to make a point, refers to the phoenix. There is no indication he considers the bird to be mythical or belief in its extraordinary means of reproduction to be irrational. Many Christians of past ages have not considered belief in unicorns to be any more irrational than belief in the resurrection. Are you sure you have good grounds for doing so?
Yes, I read the translation form the anti-nicene fathers. Yes, I have good grounds for my position, and so do many others.
The interplay between faith and reason is not exclusionary. They mingle and build upon each other. How they do this differs between people and during different times in history and our own life. I like Rom 12:3 in this context. The important substance is that reason does prevail in the direction of Christianity.
Deductions produce knowledge if: a) the deduction is valid and b) the premises are true. In the case of Paul's letter to the Romans, the deductions are largely valid, but the premises are believed by faith to be true, not known to be true in any other way. With the truth of the premises being matters of faith, it follows that the truth of the conclusions, though valid, are also matters of faith.
Then your analogy of Paul's deductions with my comparison of premises and axioms was invalid. My analogy involved deducing from faith based premises to knowledge (here I'm using your original definition of knowledge). You seem to be broadening your definite of knowledge to include a new subset of knowledge derived from faith based premises exclusively, which is odd given your original definition.
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Indeed, the question of whether we can know anything at all is a matter of philosophical faith.
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To say that the question itself is not valid is still an answer.
Not true, but as you said earlier some discussions are better left to other threads.
Sure, an answer to another question, which was not the one I asked. So you have, in fact, not addressed the paradox of whether your definition of knowledge was based on faith or knowledge.
The point of my question was to highlight your inconsistency in defining knowledge. You started with a sharp definition of knowledge and when asked if reading and testimony could add to your knowledge you said yes, but when questioned further you agreed that this was ambiguous because of personal judgement. This all makes my point regarding how we acquire knowledge.
You are forgetting that you moved the goal-posts. Your original questions were:
Do you include as knowledge something you would read from a book?
Do you include as knowledge something you received as testimony from a person?
When I affirmed that like most people I would consider much of what I read or hear to be knowledge you switched to a different question:
If someone told you they saw a miracle would you consider this a belief or knowledge?
It is no contradiction to answer one way to the first question and a different way to the second. Different questions ask for different answers.
Let's take some specific examples.
If you read an article in the Encylopedia Britannica about the Eiffel Tower, would you believe it to be accurate? If yes, would you then consider that you have some knowledge about the Eiffel Tower?
If you read an advertisement in a tabloid about a miraculous process for losing weight without diet or exercise, will you send in the coupon for the product being advertised? If not, why not?
If your sister tells you she saw a robin at the bird-feeder this morning, will you consider it true? Might you then tell someone else, "There was a robin at the bird-feeder today. I know, because my sister saw it."
What if she told you she saw Uncle Jim's ghost in the attic? Same reaction? If not, why not?
This thread has been very useful in understanding parts of your theology. This does not surprise me to be honest. No offense, honestly, but my hesitation to call myself a theistic evolutionist is mainly because of the larger set of theological positions this may connote. I believe my hesitations have been justified to some extent.
Don't put words in my mouth. If I am reporting some of the views I have heard from skeptics, that is all I am doing. I am not committing myself to the same skepticism. As I said: "in general I accept the miracle stories of the bible". I am not here to convince you or myself or anyone else not to believe the biblical record of miracles. I am just pointing out that we do believe them on the basis of faith. We have no evidential base from which to refute skeptics.
Yes, I read the translation form the anti-nicene fathers. Yes, I have good grounds for my position, and so do many others.
The interplay between faith and reason is not exclusionary. They mingle and build upon each other. How they do this differs between people and during different times in history and our own life.
I like this. Would you agree then that it was at one time not irrational to believe in the existence of unicorns but now it is? What makes the difference?
I like Rom 12:3 in this context. The important substance is that reason does prevail in the direction of Christianity.
"For by the grace given me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned."
Two things, I think, bear comment.
1. Basically this is a caution against arrogance; the "sober judgment" Paul recommends is to be a sober judgment of ourselves in a spirit of proper humility about ourselves. I am not sure how this would relate to reason prevailing in the direction of Christianity.
2. The sober judgment Paul recommends is attained "according to the measure of faith that God has assigned." It would seem Paul is encouraging thought grounded in faith, i.e. a movement from faith to reason rather than vice versa. If I were to paraphrase him, it might be along the lines of "Given the faith revealed to you, think of yourself as your faith leads you to think, and exercise judgment about yourself in the light of faith. Don't be misled by conventions of human reason to think more highly of yourself than you ought."
Then your analogy of Paul's deductions with my comparison of premises and axioms was invalid. My analogy involved deducing from faith based premises to knowledge (here I'm using your original definition of knowledge). You seem to be broadening your definite of knowledge to include a new subset of knowledge derived from faith based premises exclusively, which is odd given your original definition.
I am not sure that I follow what you are saying here, but the matter may be clarified if you remember the all-important distinction between a valid argument and a true argument. Perhaps when you said that one cannot deduce from faith, you were referring more to establishing the truth of the conclusion than the validity of the conclusion. I was asserting that one can form a valid argument on premises which one holds by faith. But it also follows that the conclusion, while logically valid, is also held by faith. A conclusion cannot have more truth-value than the premises on which it is based.
Also I have re-read the thread and cannot find the analogy you speak of. Could you re-state it or re-direct me to it?
__________________ The high, the low, all of creation God gives to humankind to use. If this privilege is misused, God's Justice permits creation to punish humanity~~ Hildegard of Bingen cited in, Earth Prayers from around the World
You are forgetting that you moved the goal-posts. Your original questions were:
This response is very weak. I moved no goal posts. My questions fit with, and grew from, your definitional claims.
Don't put words in my mouth.
I never put words in your mouth. I did not even paraphrase you as some are wont to do. In this thread the only words are yours. I said I learned form them, and I did not agree with them.
I like this. Would you agree then that it was at one time not irrational to believe in the existence of unicorns but now it is? What makes the difference?
I've explained this multiple times.
I am not sure that I follow what you are saying here, but the matter may be clarified if you remember the all-important distinction between a valid argument and a true argument. Perhaps when you said that one cannot deduce from faith, you were referring more to establishing the truth of the conclusion than the validity of the conclusion. I was asserting that one can form a valid argument on premises which one holds by faith. But it also follows that the conclusion, while logically valid, is also held by faith. A conclusion cannot have more truth-value than the premises on which it is based.
Also I have re-read the thread and cannot find the analogy you speak of. Could you re-state it or re-direct me to it?
I assumed from the beginning we both understood deductive argument structure.
This response is very weak. I moved no goal posts. My questions fit with, and grew from, your definitional claims.
I am sorry to see you take this attitude. The two questions were quite different. The second (regarding believing a report of a miracle) is a sub-set of the more general one. It ought to be obvious that special cases require special considerations.
Rather than simply labelling my response negatively, you could clarify your own position by responding to the four cases I set out. Do they evoke different responses in you? Do you consider that these different responses are contradictory and inconsistent, or do you consider each appropriate to the context?
A discussion should be two-way and by taking the stand you are now taking it seems you are challenging me to explain myself without a reciprocation on your part. You claim you are learning from me, but you are not giving me an opportunity to learn from you or even to understand the basis of your criticisms.
I never put words in your mouth. I did not even paraphrase you as some are wont to do. In this thread the only words are yours. I said I learned from them, and I did not agree with them.
You spoke of "understanding my theology" in response to a paragraph in which I had listed some skeptical explanations of the resurrection. It was inappropriate to assume that these explanations form part of my theology. I do not count myself among the skeptics who promote such pseudo-explanations. I just laid out what some of them are.
As a Christian, I hold to a theology that is apostolic, biblical, and trinitarian after the pattern of the Nicene creed. Is it that theology that you disagree with?
I've explained this multiple times.
How could you have explained it multiple times when it is the first time I posed the question? Even if you had, teaching requires patience and repetition. The question was a clarifying question and I am disappointed in your refusal to help me understand you better.
I assumed from the beginning we both understood deductive argument structure.
So did I, but in struggling to understand what you were saying, it occurred to me (perhaps needlessly) that we were focusing on different aspects. If I misread you, perhaps you could clarify your original statement.
Doing your work and my work is tedious for me.
I did do my work. I re-read all your posts in this thread. I did not appeal to you until I had done my part.
So what am I to make of this? To say it is tedious to find what you were referring to is ok. If the point is not important enough to warrant the effort to find or recall it, that's all right. You just need to say so. But there is no need to come down on me because I asked for your help.
__________________ The high, the low, all of creation God gives to humankind to use. If this privilege is misused, God's Justice permits creation to punish humanity~~ Hildegard of Bingen cited in, Earth Prayers from around the World
Assuming a completely naturalistic flow of events (no miraculous intervention by God) from the singularity to intelligent life, many people, not all mind you, believe intelligent life is inevitable and common. I would be interested in hearing whether you believe in the existence of extra-terrestrial life and if so what you think the theological implications are?
Hi, Since I'm new to the forums I'll quickly mention I do believe in an old earth. I'm a strong believer in science and a devout Christian. This coincidence does not cause me any crisis of faith. I'm not trying to pose a setup question or anything. I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts. I personally believe we are the sole species in all of the universe that God has created in His image. Yes, I'm aware of the immensity of the universe. I'm not a scientific neophyte. I have rational, if not popular, reasons for believing this.
There are many Biblical references to flying vehicles....the following are a few:
Isaiah 66:20 And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to My holy mountain Jerusalem," saith the Lord, "as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord.
Swift Beasts~ Swift beasts is Hebrew (kirkaroth) from kdrar, to move in a circle; hence, may mean (like English car) any vehicleon wheels. It is never used of animals. There is nothing to suggest "swaying furnace", as suggested by some, to mean "locomotives". - E.W. Bullinger
Isaiah 30:6 The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from which come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.
Baalhazor, "Lord of the fortresses" provides a connection between Baal and the god of the antichrist. Baal was lord of war and of the sky. Many titles were given to Baal by adding endings to his name. Some examples found in scripture are Baalbamoth = Lord of the high places, Baalzebub = Lord of those who fly, or, flit. Zebub is a Hebrew verb which means to flit from place to place.
two tortured references in prophetic visions != aliens
__________________
Give me Scotland or I die - John Knox
A mathematician confided
That a Möbius band is one-sided,
And you'll get quite a laugh,
If you cut one in half,
For it stays in one piece when divided!
In fact, as our understanding increases the evidence is pointing to intelligent life being less likely then once believed. This trend is continuing.
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The better understanding we are gaining is in the detailed factors and conditions needed for intelligent life and this has been pointing inexorably toward lower probabilities. For example, we can believe with confidence that galactic areas with dense star formation would be sterile. This is just one of many examples.
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As our knowledge grows about the universe and our planet's history and makeup, it is becoming clearer that intelligent life is less likely not more likely then we thought. The universe is a great place to study high energy physics, but a very, very hostile place for complex biology. This is the simple truth.
The major flaw in the drake equation (aside from the unknown probabilities involved) is the assumption that all life is planetary and carbon-based. Plasma is the most common state of baryonic matter in the universe. 99.9% of our solar system's mass is plasma. Therein lies the key...
Faster evolution rates can be achieved for non-organic structures in space consisting mostly of plasmas and dust grains (natural components spread almost everywhere in the Universe). The self-organization of dusty plasmas into helical form was first observed in cryogenic discharges in 2005 and described as a "boundary-free worm-like dust structure." It was also observed in laser cooling traps with high ion densities. The 2007 study "From plasma crystals and helical structures towards inorganic living matter" proposed that:
"Complex plasmas may naturally self-organize themselves into stable interacting helical structures that exhibit features normally attributed to organic living matter... These interacting complex structures exhibit thermodynamic and evolutionary features thought to be peculiar only to living matter such as bifurcations that serve as `memory marks', self-duplication, metabolic rates in a thermodynamically open system, and non-Hamiltonian dynamics. We examine the salient features of this new complex `state of soft matter' in light of the autonomy, evolution, progenity and autopoiesis principles used to define life. It is concluded that complex self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter that may exist in space."
These new breakthroughs significantly change the prerequisites for life. We now know that life doesn't require carbon, stars, or planets. Abiogenesis only requires the energy, plasma, and dust which permeate our universe.
The major flaw in the drake equation (aside from the unknown probabilities involved) is the assumption that all life is planetary and carbon-based. Plasma is the most common state of baryonic matter in the universe. 99.9% of our solar system's mass is plasma. Therein lies the key...
Faster evolution rates can be achieved for non-organic structures in space consisting mostly of plasmas and dust grains (natural components spread almost everywhere in the Universe). The self-organization of dusty plasmas into helical form was first observed in cryogenic discharges in 2005 and described as a "boundary-free worm-like dust structure." It was also observed in laser cooling traps with high ion densities. The 2007 study "From plasma crystals and helical structures towards inorganic living matter" proposed that:
"Complex plasmas may naturally self-organize themselves into stable interacting helical structures that exhibit features normally attributed to organic living matter... These interacting complex structures exhibit thermodynamic and evolutionary features thought to be peculiar only to living matter such as bifurcations that serve as `memory marks', self-duplication, metabolic rates in a thermodynamically open system, and non-Hamiltonian dynamics. We examine the salient features of this new complex `state of soft matter' in light of the autonomy, evolution, progenity and autopoiesis principles used to define life. It is concluded that complex self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter that may exist in space."
These new breakthroughs significantly change the prerequisites for life. We now know that life doesn't require carbon, stars, or planets. Abiogenesis only requires the energy, plasma, and dust which permeate our universe.
No offense, but this is science fiction. 50 years ago maybe we could have speculated about non-organic life, but now that we know the complexity of what actually occurs in a living system any thoughts of non-carbon based life can be dismissed. No serious scientist would consider it possible for there to be plasma based life. Life requires complex chemistry. Complex chemistry is for the most part not possible in plasma.
If you have had some college level chemistry, preferably some basic organic chemistry, I would suggest the following book for an excellent and very comprehensive introduction into the biochemistry of the cell. Your best bet is to check it out at a local college library.
The problem with the drake equation is the uber optimism in the commonality of biochemical conditions. It is unfounded. As I said earlier, the universe is a great place for high energy physics but not so great for complex life.
Linear Mode
