On the futility of evidence-based apologetics

[Tone]

Basically responded according to his assumptions...his biggest problem is the inability to test such a hypothesis, which isn't within the limitations/parameters of Science via the Scientific Method. Sorry about confusion, I try to keep buried responses short.

Thanks for your clarification, but I also would like your input:

but do you think the creation would dissolve if all humans were gone?

 

[Tone]

If nothing else, these threads do prove that the Bible is correct when it says:

Proverbs 18:17
"17The first to state his case seems right until another comes forward and examines him."

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Thanks for your clarification, but I also would like your input: but do you think the creation would dissolve if all humans were gone?

Sounds like a question better suited for the more Scientifically inclined person, God gave me more of a philosophical mind, so it's the gift I try to glorify him with. The reason I say this is because it involves changes in the food chain, atmosphere, and probably many other effects apply to that hypothetical situation. Many of our friends would have us to believe conceptual realities such as the laws of logic, mathematics, etc. are human conventions, that these only exist in human minds. So the logical conclusion of your question would be the end of those metaphysical conceptual realities which are crucial to the Science fields...among other things like human language.

 

[Tone]

Sounds like a question better suited for the more Scientifically inclined person, God gave me more of a philosophical mind, so it's the gift I try to glorify him with. The reason I say this is because it involves changes in the food chain, atmosphere, and probably many other effects apply to that hypothetical situation. Many of our friends would have us to believe conceptual realities such as the laws of logic, mathematics, etc. are human conventions, that these only exist in human minds. So the logical conclusion of your question would be the end of those metaphysical conceptual realities which are crucial to the Science fields...among other things like human language.

Are you familiar with the Jewish idea that the Hebrew Aleph Bet are the actual DNA of creation? Not only that, but don't you believe in the real power of prayer...and without people here to pray...

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

If nothing else, these threads do prove that the Bible is correct when it says:

Proverbs 18:17
"17The first to state his case seems right until another comes forward and examines him."

If we're on God's side, we're on the winning side, not that we have all the answers or we in ourselves even know how to win in every situation. The battle belongs to the Lord (1 Samuel 17:47), he will fight for us when we cannot (Proverbs 21:31), his word does not return to him void. (Isaiah 55:11)

 

[Tone]

If we're on God's side, we're on the winning side, not that we have all the answers or we in ourselves even know how to win in every situation. The battle belongs to the Lord (1 Samuel 17:47), he will fight for us when we cannot (Proverbs 21:31), his word does not return to him void. (Isaiah 55:11)

Yeah, we must sow in prayer as well. These people are lost...and time is short.

 

[Tone]

It might not even take all humans to be removed from the earth for creation to melt down...just those upholding it by abiding in Him...

Hebrews 1:3
"3The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."

*I mean, think about it, there is no life on any other planets...there are also no humans there.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Are you familiar with the Jewish idea that the Hebrew Aleph Bet are the actual DNA of creation?

No clue sorry.

Not only that, but don't you believe in the real power of prayer...and without people here to pray...

I believe in the power of God to answer prayers according to his will, and often we're clueless about the fine details of his will applied to ourselves and others. But it is good to pray, and humbling, for often I do not know how or what to pray or as I ought to (Romans 8:26). During these times I look to the ultimate example, the Lord's prayer.

 

[gaara4158]

Being cynical isn't exactly a scientific frame of mind; it's an emotive one, if anything. So, make sure to differentiate your psychological tendencies (which we can all have, obviously) from those states of mind that are more appropriate to being rationally skeptical. Cynicism does not equal a healthy Skepticism.

As for the various genres of religious thought and literature we find in the Bible, we might do well to remind ourselves as we casually leaf through its dusty pages that it is indeed an ancient, foreign book, removed from us in place, time, and mindset....and it should feel this way to us despite the fact that we may be reading an English approximation of those texts. We should likewise feel the same way as we peruse any old religious writings from other religions. As we do this, any recognition of "cosmic value" in the Bible won't come by way of attempting to find some 'romanticism' in the essence of the writings; no, any resonance of revelation will come not because the texts are 'true,' but but because God is real. Besides, if you're an Existential, Critical Realist when studying the Bible, you'll get to be just that: Critical. And this means that for you to understand the Bible, you'll have to study MORE THAN just the Bible.

Concrete 'truth-claims'? How? Where? What kind? Why? By Whom? ...To what extent?

In starting with the Bible existentially, you don't have to grant it ANYTHING, other than what you see before you on initial impact. The integrity of dealing with the Bible, however, will be seen in the ways that you actually try to answer the contextual questions I just listed above, something that I'm not sure many people, whether they be believing or non-believing, seem like they want to do. But they sure want to 'say' something about it all, nevertheless.

You're question is valid, but I'm afraid that it misses a key point: that a person could grow in their understanding about world religions and come to a point where they feel one religious avenue is surely worth more than the other avenues and is THEREBY more worthy of one's time in this short life. The way you make it sound, this all just comes about by emotional happenstance straight from the get go.

If this is the case, why are there portions of the Bible that I still don't understand or am able to make clear heads-or-tails of?

Sometimes, I think that it isn't so much that skeptics and atheists are really looking for some magical "it" in the Bible, but rather, they're looking for an effect, a supreme effect, that the magical "it" has been told them that "it" should offer up ... yeah, I don't think most of us will find that "effect," especially if that is all we're looking for.

Well, then, don't allow yourself to be biased. I don't.

Why would God have to do the same thing for every one in bringing them to belief and faith?

Sure, but you'll be saying this while soaked in cynicism and without having actually engaged Pascal in a fuller understanding of his overall, existentialistic position.

Then if you want to get beyond 'simple' reading and 'simple' acceptance, we'll have to consider what else this process might entail?

As I said, you don't have to shed being skeptical or being critical; the name of the game is to allow yourself to think more deeply on the issues, but at the same time you do need to bring to a heel your emotive inclinations toward cynicism. This last point isn't something, for instance, I think PineCreek and his friends actually do to the fullest of their abilities.

You’ve given me a lot to think about, so rather than turn around and retort immediately I think I’ll take some time to digest and consider it all. In the meantime, could you tell me more about your critical realism? You’ve mentioned it a few times now, and I haven’t gotten around to looking it up yet.

 

[gaara4158]

Not that I'm fully agreeing with @Apologetic_Warrior on this, but I don't think your view on things here is fully born out either. Just look at PineCreek and friends in the video: they all admit that they're Philosophical Naturalists [at the 2hour, 11 minute mark], which is the obverse side of the epistemological coing to I.D., and both of these positions are over and against my position which remains with the position of Methodological Naturalism in mainstream science. Their having an inclination toward PN isn't by all necessity an emergent property of whatever overall epistemology each of them may or may not have, so there could be some 'play' as to the level of objectivity that is actually had in their respective positions, just as there is likely to be some 'play' in my own position.

So, I wouldn't say that any of this is "perfectly safe."

It’s safe in the sense that it’s not going to vary from person to person as long as each accepts the central axioms codified in the laws of logic (which we all implicitly do before we even realize it), regardless of how possible or impossible a “true” apprehension of reality actually is.
In other words, our if-then statements can be evaluated objectively regardless of what metaphysical framework we accept. All of science can be expressed in terms of if-then statements such that it makes absolutely no metaphysical statements, but still provides useful predictive models of the reality we observe.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

I will quote what you said about the laws of logic; "are descriptions of the behavior of reality." Which is false because as I pointed out, "inanimate objects do not posses "behavior", inanimate objects are part of reality. To correct yourself you come up with a distinction of conscious and unconscious phenomena, and yet unconscious phenomena is still incapable of "behavior". Perhaps you used the term in a sense other than the common use of the term associated with ethics? Okay I can accept that, but a different less ambiguous term would have not led to this misunderstanding. So if I misunderstood on this point, I apologize.

You did misunderstand. People often speak of behavior with regard to things that possess no cognitive capacity. Thanks for the apology.

On the contrary, the axiom you claim, presupposes the existence of God.

Nope. My axiom presupposes only an immutable reality. Nothing else.

Yours presupposes an immutable, "supernatural" cosmic mind, from which reality derives.

My axiom is simple. Yours needlessly includes additional presuppositions. Mine is better.

What you claim so far as authority is concerned is called "autonomy", which is independent, self-governing interpretation of reality. Your view never reaches what you claim, it cannot touch objective reality, there is no epistemological point of contact, only internal subjective interpretation of external phenomena

Suppose I grant this.

Your "solution" to this problem of subjectivity is to propose a reality that derives from an all-powerful cosmic mind. That would mean reality itself is subjective, thereby blowing up the problem to the size of the totality of existence.

That's not just shooting yourself in the foot. That's sawing both your own legs off and diving headfirst into quicksand.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

You're both right.

We can't both be right.

One of us believes reality does not derive from anything.

The other believes reality derives from a "supernatural" cosmic mind.

 

[Tom 1]

The only way that it is possible for someone to be a theist is if they think that the evidence is sufficient to warrant belief, so if someone agreed that the evidence is not sufficient to warrant belief, then they wouldn't believe and therefore wouldn't be a theist. Faith is about keeping our minds focused on the fact that we have been given sufficient evidence and has nothing to do with believing something while considering there to be insufficient evidence as though that were even humanly possible.

I don't know if it's all that concrete, we tend to think that we are more rational than we actually are, whatever it is that we believe. We take a few things that seem fairly certain for one reason or another and then make narratives that connect those few things together, and call that rational thinking.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

You’ve given me a lot to think about, so rather than turn around and retort immediately I think I’ll take some time to digest and consider it all. In the meantime, could you tell me more about your critical realism? You’ve mentioned it a few times now, and I haven’t gotten around to looking it up yet.

Since you need time to digest the things I've so far shared, I leave you for a few weeks with the following additional things to consider:

1) Critical Realism is a generalist post-structuralist/post-modernist approach to critical theory and there "... is not one unitary framework, set of beliefs, methodology, or dogma that unites critical realists as a whole. Instead, critical realism is much more like a series of family resemblances in which there are various commonalities that exist between the members of a family, but these commonalities overlap and crisscross in different ways." (see the source of this quote below for a fuller introductory explanation)

What is Critical Realism?​

2) My angle of application of Critical Realism is made within, and as an aspect of, the overarching field of Philosophical Hermeneutics as I generally conceptualize it is more or less defined by Jens Zimmerman in the following short video [4+ minutes], which you may have seen me present before.:

Of course, there's a whole boat load of other epistemological issues and various philosophical things to get into, but I'll leave these more basic assessments with you while I do a disappearing act for a few weeks.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

It’s safe in the sense that it’s not going to vary from person to person as long as each accepts the central axioms codified in the laws of logic (which we all implicitly do before we even realize it), regardless of how possible or impossible a “true” apprehension of reality actually is.

.............................................. maybe.

In other words, our if-then statements can be evaluated objectively regardless of what metaphysical framework we accept. All of science can be expressed in terms of if-then statements such that it makes absolutely no metaphysical statements, but still provides useful predictive models of the reality we observe.

..............................again maybe. But we can get into that later.

Take care, and I'll pick back up with you in a few.

 

[zippy2006]

In other words, our if-then statements can be evaluated objectively regardless of what metaphysical framework we accept. All of science can be expressed in terms of if-then statements such that it makes absolutely no metaphysical statements, but still provides useful predictive models of the reality we observe.

One of the central concerns of metaphysics is causality, and that is implicitly or explicitly what if-then statements are all about. What you say here seems very, very hard to defend. Even the inevitable forays into Humean problems of induction will strongly implicate metaphysics. Even weak postulates about "constant conjunction" and predictability are metaphysical statements.

To state it very simply, descriptions of the behavior of reality can never fully prescind from questions regarding the nature of reality. As the Scholastics observed, behavior follows upon nature / act follows upon being.

 

[Tone]

We can't both be right.

One of us believes reality does not derive from anything.

The other believes reality derives from a "supernatural" cosmic mind.

So...would a "supernatural" cosmic mind be some thing...probably not...is Spirit "thing"? You said reality is immutable...The Creator is immutable...so...you're both right.

 

[Tone]

The only way that it is possible for someone to be a theist is if they think that the evidence is sufficient to warrant belief, so if someone agreed that the evidence is not sufficient to warrant belief, then they wouldn't believe and therefore wouldn't be a theist. Faith is about keeping our minds focused on the fact that we have been given sufficient evidence and has nothing to do with believing something while considering there to be insufficient evidence as though that were even humanly possible.

That's a good point, it's kind of like "It is what it is"...obviously, a believer has accepted the evidence they need to do so...and a nonbeliever has accepted whatever they need to not do so.

 

[HitchSlap]

So...would a "supernatural" cosmic mind be some thing...probably not...is Spirit "thing"? You said reality is immutable...The Creator is immutable...so...you're both right.

So an immaterial "Spirit "thing"" created a material world? This is demonstrable how?

 

[Tone]

So an immaterial "Spirit "thing"" created a material world? This is demonstrable how?

Well, what made the material world,in your opinion...and demonstrate? To answer your question, it's demonstrable by looking (also hearing, feeling, and smelling...and any other sense) around at what is "seen" (experienced by every aspect of our being). Even now, how far back (or down) have physicists conjectured...from one tiny thing to a tinnier thing, to....ad infinitum....and have we even seen an atom...tis invisible...hmmmmm...