Aelred of Rievaulx
Well-Known Member
I've already given a reason to be a little more sceptical towards the atheistic traditions... Plantinga's EAAN was the example I gave.
Upvote
0
Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
I've already given a reason to be a little more sceptical towards the atheistic traditions... Plantinga's EAAN was the example I gave.What then, are these reasons for thinking that God exists?
Atheists don't, or at least shouldn't, claim there's no God.
If by atheism you mean that there is no God, then I am no more an atheist than I am a Christian. I have no assumption that there is no God type creator, so do not need to be convinced otherwise.At the very least this dispels with the assumption of atheism.
I've already given a reason to be a little more sceptical towards the atheistic traditions... Plantinga's EAAN was the example I gave.
Well if they did that, they would also be accepting miracles in the Koran, the Hindu religous books, and all those other religous books.Not a single historian denies Jesus existed based upon historical evidence. They simply dismiss the miracles listed in those historical observations simply because they do not believe in miracles. So they agree by the same sources that list the miracles that Jesus existed - then deny the miracles attributed to Jesus in those same sources. For no other reason than they do not want to accept those declaration and eyewitness accounts of the miracles while accepting the same eye witness accounts and declarations of his existence. Sounds a bit like picking and choosing what are facts or not to me. The sources are reliable enough to show he existed but unreliable enough to show miracles occurred???
You know... Sometimes when I talk to you I get the feeling that you're a teenager who's read Dawkins and Hitchens and not much else. I would imagine that an atheist who's been through college would have heard of and studied Plantinga's EAAN.
EAAN says that it's at the very least problematic that human brains have evolved in order to be able to comprehend notions of truth. Anyone looking at the nature of evolution would agree, nothing about natural selection in any way entails the ability for creatures to notion "truth". This is why the argument has quite a bit of wealth behind it.You're kind of evading answering a perfectly legit question, imo.
What is the justification for saying that we humans "shouldn't have" these brain abilities?
If that is an argument against "naturalism", then it would mean that "naturalism" somehow predicts that achieving abstract thinking through an evolutionary process is somehow "impossible".
How does it predict that? How and/or why should it be impossible?
In other words, and to repeat the other poster's question: what is the justification for this assertion, that humans should not have such brain functions "if naturalism is true"?
EAAN says that it's at the very least problematic that human brains have evolved in order to be able to comprehend notions of truth.
Anyone looking at the nature of evolution would agree, nothing about natural selection in any way entails the ability for creatures to notion "truth".
This is why the argument has quite a bit of wealth behind it.
Well if they did that, they would also be accepting miracles in the Koran, the Hindu religous books, and all those other religous books.
Reminds me of this quote from Terry Pratchett on scrodingers catAnd? So they just have further confirmation that they exist.
Contemporary science offers very different descriptions of how the universe works. Observable laws still operate, but they are activated by chance. Thus, in the emerging picture offered by contemporary science there is a dynamic of structured randomness both in the activity of subatomic particles and in the macro world of evolving stars and planets. In evolutionary perspective, the world appears to be self-creating. It may be a purposeless process, in which case the emergence of human beings is a fortuitous accident. Or it may have purpose, rooted in a Divine Intelligence Who fashioned human beings for Himself.
In any case, science no longer corresponds to anyone's common sense. Whether there is room in such an evolving universe for God — and therefore the kinds of divine action assumed by miracles — is a legitimate, even pressing issue, which contemporary philosophers, theologians, and scientists are pursuing with considerable intellectual vigor.
If the universe at the smallest sub-atomic level is indeed random chance as science is indeed beginning to postulate - then common sense can not be applied to it any longer. Nothing is certain - all is random chance guided only by the mind of the one who perceives it. If the universe and all we observe is indeed merely what we perceive it to be upon the perception of it, as is now becoming standard dogma in scientific circles, then we all perceive the same random chance creating the same unavoidable laws we understand are active in the universe despite claims of randomness.
So you perceive the same random universe that I perceive - despite it being random and only existing in our perceptions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation
All common sense has departed, which means that what one perceives to be a miracle and what one perceives to be random chance - is indeed only in the eye of the beholder in both cases - either reality being completely valid in a universe in which common sense has been deprived.
I make the assumption that the Bible is the only source of information at our disposal which may indicate that the Christian God exists here and now. Seeing a physical world around us simply indicates that he may have created this world a while back, but does not indicate that he is still with us.
I propose that we have no way of verifying whether the contents in the Bible are indeed correct, true or even complete. They could very well just be stories made up by men over the centuries, or not. We simply don't know for sure.
Due to this doubt and inability to verify, I propose that the default position should be that "We do not know for sure", and that those that say there is a God and those that say there is no God, need to justify their position.
Kindly show me the fault in my thought process.
Excellent point. I have no idea if there is a God or not. It could go either way.
So I'm looking for an answer as to which way I should side, or whether I should just stay on the fence.
You know... Sometimes when I talk to you I get the feeling that you're a teenager who's read Dawkins and Hitchens and not much else. I would imagine that an atheist who's been through college would have heard of and studied Plantinga's EAAN.
Secondly, you will notice that in every spoken language on earth, all words are defined in terms of other words. So if we have a sentence like, "The ball is red," and we replace "ball" with its definition, then we have a longer sentence; since we will never arrive at a word which requires no definition, it follows that this process iterates indefinitely.
So we see that logic and mathematics are the use of terms that have no meaning which are said to be expressing an unverifiable assumption that is then used to conditionally prove another arbitrary statement which also decomposes into terms that have no meaning.
For the record, @Nihilist Virus , are you or are you not a teenager?
This is not quite true. Ostensious definition is the act of pointing at something in reality. Many times when someone asks: "what do you mean by 'red ball'"? All we can do it point to a red ball. Here words are directly attached to their referents and no further words are needed.
Ignorant reasoning. If you point to a red billiard ball and say, "Red ball," it cannot be said that you are also saying a red basketball is also a ball. Such primitive correlation does not generate an ambient definition of anything. Furthermore, there is no way to know if you mean to be defining the red ball as such or naming it "red ball."
Huh? You should take a class on linguistics. Or read a book. Or an article. Even a very basic survey will cover the idea of ostensious definition.
Additional contemporary and independent, corroborating evidence is a good place to start.
It also kind of goes together with the content of the claims.
The more fantastical the claims, the more additional evidence will be required.
The stories of the bible have very very little such additional extra-biblical evidence, if at all.
That's not providing examples of criteria you use to determine if any document is historically reliable.
How do you know Josephus and Tacitus are reliable witnesses?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?