Friday, July 07, 2006
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Take no hostages?
***QUOTE***
That's when it hit me- Christianity is a confrontational faith/religion. If people find it offensive, that's the way it's suppose to be. This is the reason why many Christian apologists, be it Jonathan Sarfati from Answers in Genesis, James P Holding/Robert Turkel of Tekton Apologetics, Jason Engwer of "Steve'N'Pals"...erm..."Triablouge" are confrontational in their tone. To be polite, friendly, and kind to the opposition is weak and looked down on as "whimpy". This is because Christianity is offensive. It's designed to be this way. Christianity is supposed to be offensive and confrontational to the world and is supposed to offend the world and its "sin". Christian apologists like Sarfati, Holding, and Engwer are confrontational and offensive for a good reason- their faith requires them to be. They won't be nice about it. Contrarily- their approach is a in-your-face, offensive approach that demands an answer from you and condemns you when you fail to give the answer that apologists want-which is conversion. Jason doens't care if I don't like Christianity- he's only interested in seeing me convert-which I cheerfully promise him will never happen. If he doesn't like it, I am not sure of how to tell him politely that I don't give a damn and that he can go to hell for all I care.
Christianity is offensive and confrontational and its intentionally suppose to be this way. If I recall correctly, I believe that my dad once delivered a sermon which he said something to the effect of "If the gospel doesn't make you feel uncomfortable, then you don't really belong in Church". He's right! That's because the gospel is confrontational and should make people feel uncomfortable. One's "comfort zone" is born out of compromise with the world. In my dad's opinion, if you are not running into the devil, it's because you're running in the same direction as him! It's the take-no-hostages, in-your-face, confrontational style of Christians like Engwer that is truly Christian.
Coming to this realization has made me aware of some really disturbing truths. First of all, I cannot be diplomatic with Christianity. How can you be diplomatic with something that's designed to offend and confront you, and, if you allow it to, bully you into confessing it's true and converting you? I learned this the hard way. There's no diplomacy. It's destroy or be destroyed. Secondly, this realization has made me painfully aware of an inconsistency that I have been evading for some time now that I can evade no longer because I am tired of being a whimp about it. Christians live by a double-standard. Christians think it's wonderful for a Christian to convert an atheist to being a Christian but think it's horrible for an atheist to convert a Christian to being an atheist. If Christians are allowed to convert non-Christians, then shouldn't non-Christians be allowed to convert Christians?
Third, many many Christians seem to think that they can be as rude, self-righteous, as spiteful as they want to disbelievers such as atheists, yet atheists have to go out of their way to be as polite, friendly, and kind to Christians, to the point of almost tip-toeing around egg-shells or else Christians scream "Persecution!" Atheists have to be as sweet as pie to Christians but many Christians think they can treat atheists as dirt poor as they like. Fourth, many Christians have no qualms whatsoever about imposing their beliefs on others through personal evangelism, filling the airwaves and television channels with their creeds, yet seem utterly indignant when atheists might do the same. Many Christians have no care in the world that what they say may offend or insult others.
***END-QUOTE***
It’s often striking to observe the disconnect between how people view themselves and how they’re viewed by others.
1.I think Jason is suffering from guilt-by-association. Matthew is projecting on to Jason what he resents in me or his own dad or some other blogger.
Jason is never rude or spiteful. Jason has an irenic style. Jason never tries to bully his opponent, but to reason with his opponent. The only forcible method he ever employs is the force of reason.
2.Bloggers, being human, reflect a range of character types. There are also differences of national character.
3.Christian bloggers also vary in their theology when it comes to dealing with unbelievers.
Unbelief is culpable, but there are degrees of culpability.
When a man loses his faith, that’s a tragedy. But if a man who loses his faith endeavors to destroy the faith of others, then that invites a very different response.
4. The idea that unbelievers generally bend over backwards to be nice and polite to Christians is a claim which a few clicks of the mouse would bury under an avalanche of counter-evidence.
5.Matthew is assuming that this is all about him. But blogging is a public medium. The target audience is far larger than one’s immediate opponent.
6.Emotive talk about “imposing” our faith through personal evangelism and televangelism says less about the believer than it does about the unbeliever’s personal insecurities.
7.The charge of a double standard is incoherent: “Christians think it's wonderful for a Christian to convert an atheist to being a Christian but think it's horrible for an atheist to convert a Christian to being an atheist.”
How is that a double standard?
Is Frank Walton guilty of a double standard if he thinks it’s wonderful for a Neo-Nazi to convert to Christianity, but horrible for a Christian to convert to Neonazism?
That’s not a double standard, but a single standard. One is good, and the other is bad.
8.Are non-Christians not allowed to convert Christians?
Matthew is bent out of shape, not because he isn’t free to speak his mind, but because freedom of speech is a two-way street.
9.Matthew is acting as if we had a personal investment in Christian epologetics. “Destroy or be destroyed!” “Take no hostages!”
Speaking for myself, I don’t have anything at stake. Nothing to gain and nothing to lose. I feel like a poker player who’s gambling with someone else’s money.
I’m like a homeless drunk whom the good Lord plucked up off the pavement, dried out, dressed up in a tux, and stuck in a high stakes poker game.
Those are not my C-bills on the line. He staked me to whipsaw the opponents—because one cheater deserves another!
That's when it hit me- Christianity is a confrontational faith/religion. If people find it offensive, that's the way it's suppose to be. This is the reason why many Christian apologists, be it Jonathan Sarfati from Answers in Genesis, James P Holding/Robert Turkel of Tekton Apologetics, Jason Engwer of "Steve'N'Pals"...erm..."Triablouge" are confrontational in their tone. To be polite, friendly, and kind to the opposition is weak and looked down on as "whimpy". This is because Christianity is offensive. It's designed to be this way. Christianity is supposed to be offensive and confrontational to the world and is supposed to offend the world and its "sin". Christian apologists like Sarfati, Holding, and Engwer are confrontational and offensive for a good reason- their faith requires them to be. They won't be nice about it. Contrarily- their approach is a in-your-face, offensive approach that demands an answer from you and condemns you when you fail to give the answer that apologists want-which is conversion. Jason doens't care if I don't like Christianity- he's only interested in seeing me convert-which I cheerfully promise him will never happen. If he doesn't like it, I am not sure of how to tell him politely that I don't give a damn and that he can go to hell for all I care.
Christianity is offensive and confrontational and its intentionally suppose to be this way. If I recall correctly, I believe that my dad once delivered a sermon which he said something to the effect of "If the gospel doesn't make you feel uncomfortable, then you don't really belong in Church". He's right! That's because the gospel is confrontational and should make people feel uncomfortable. One's "comfort zone" is born out of compromise with the world. In my dad's opinion, if you are not running into the devil, it's because you're running in the same direction as him! It's the take-no-hostages, in-your-face, confrontational style of Christians like Engwer that is truly Christian.
Coming to this realization has made me aware of some really disturbing truths. First of all, I cannot be diplomatic with Christianity. How can you be diplomatic with something that's designed to offend and confront you, and, if you allow it to, bully you into confessing it's true and converting you? I learned this the hard way. There's no diplomacy. It's destroy or be destroyed. Secondly, this realization has made me painfully aware of an inconsistency that I have been evading for some time now that I can evade no longer because I am tired of being a whimp about it. Christians live by a double-standard. Christians think it's wonderful for a Christian to convert an atheist to being a Christian but think it's horrible for an atheist to convert a Christian to being an atheist. If Christians are allowed to convert non-Christians, then shouldn't non-Christians be allowed to convert Christians?
Third, many many Christians seem to think that they can be as rude, self-righteous, as spiteful as they want to disbelievers such as atheists, yet atheists have to go out of their way to be as polite, friendly, and kind to Christians, to the point of almost tip-toeing around egg-shells or else Christians scream "Persecution!" Atheists have to be as sweet as pie to Christians but many Christians think they can treat atheists as dirt poor as they like. Fourth, many Christians have no qualms whatsoever about imposing their beliefs on others through personal evangelism, filling the airwaves and television channels with their creeds, yet seem utterly indignant when atheists might do the same. Many Christians have no care in the world that what they say may offend or insult others.
***END-QUOTE***
It’s often striking to observe the disconnect between how people view themselves and how they’re viewed by others.
1.I think Jason is suffering from guilt-by-association. Matthew is projecting on to Jason what he resents in me or his own dad or some other blogger.
Jason is never rude or spiteful. Jason has an irenic style. Jason never tries to bully his opponent, but to reason with his opponent. The only forcible method he ever employs is the force of reason.
2.Bloggers, being human, reflect a range of character types. There are also differences of national character.
3.Christian bloggers also vary in their theology when it comes to dealing with unbelievers.
Unbelief is culpable, but there are degrees of culpability.
When a man loses his faith, that’s a tragedy. But if a man who loses his faith endeavors to destroy the faith of others, then that invites a very different response.
4. The idea that unbelievers generally bend over backwards to be nice and polite to Christians is a claim which a few clicks of the mouse would bury under an avalanche of counter-evidence.
5.Matthew is assuming that this is all about him. But blogging is a public medium. The target audience is far larger than one’s immediate opponent.
6.Emotive talk about “imposing” our faith through personal evangelism and televangelism says less about the believer than it does about the unbeliever’s personal insecurities.
7.The charge of a double standard is incoherent: “Christians think it's wonderful for a Christian to convert an atheist to being a Christian but think it's horrible for an atheist to convert a Christian to being an atheist.”
How is that a double standard?
Is Frank Walton guilty of a double standard if he thinks it’s wonderful for a Neo-Nazi to convert to Christianity, but horrible for a Christian to convert to Neonazism?
That’s not a double standard, but a single standard. One is good, and the other is bad.
8.Are non-Christians not allowed to convert Christians?
Matthew is bent out of shape, not because he isn’t free to speak his mind, but because freedom of speech is a two-way street.
9.Matthew is acting as if we had a personal investment in Christian epologetics. “Destroy or be destroyed!” “Take no hostages!”
Speaking for myself, I don’t have anything at stake. Nothing to gain and nothing to lose. I feel like a poker player who’s gambling with someone else’s money.
I’m like a homeless drunk whom the good Lord plucked up off the pavement, dried out, dressed up in a tux, and stuck in a high stakes poker game.
Those are not my C-bills on the line. He staked me to whipsaw the opponents—because one cheater deserves another!
A monkey's uncle
***QUOTE***
Ashamed of Their Ancestry
A while back, I was reading the idthefuture site, where I was referred to an article at an apologetics site on materialism. Joe Carter, in the article, "The Mystical Monkey Mind: Four Common Errors of Naturalistic Epistemology," presented a quote from Darwin which I saw pop up again the other day:
“With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has always been developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”
It appears, at first glance, a serious problem: if our minds are "just" monkey brains, why do we trust them? But, as is attributed to Solomon as being said, "The first to present his case seems right, until another comes along to examine him." (Prov 18:17, NIV) Let us examine the argument posed by Joe, Paul Manata, and others.
First, should Darwin's opinion on the matter, without presenting any particular argument for support, hold any weight? Not really. After all, this seems quite self-refuting -- if the man who pieced together the case that we descended from great apes then concluded our minds untrustworthy for that reason, then his "case" is obviously imperiled. In fact, we might make a simple conclusion from this statement: it is self-refuting. Just like making the statement, "I always lie," there is no way to escape the circular destruction of this logic. If your mind's convictions are not trustworthy, how do you even convince yourself of, or trust in, the validity of that conviction?
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/07/ashamed-of-their-ancestry.html
***END-QUOTE***
Danny doesn’t understand what a dilemma is. Darwin’s argument is self-refuting in the sense that it poses a dilemma:
We rely on our minds to construct a philosophy of mind. But what if our philosophy of mind undermines rationality?
If our minds are reliable, then a philosophy of mind that undermines rationality is a self-refuting philosophy.
So the problem would not be with my mind, but with my philosophy of mind.
If, however, you’re going to stick with a philosophy of mind that undermines rationality, then that does, indeed, pose an intractable dilemma.
The fact that you are rational doesn’t prove that your philosophy of mind is equally rational.
The fact that Darwin was rational doesn’t prove that Darwinism is rational. Evolutionary epistemology could well be self-refuting.
“Also, this argument to reject the soundness of the human mind may be a variant of the genetic fallacy -- based on a categorical rejection of an argument or idea simply based on where it originated, rather than on sound reasoning.”
The genetic fallacy is not always a fallacy. If someone is psychotic, or if someone is high on acid, then we do discount his observation about pink rats running amok in the cellar.
Conversely, there can be a valid argument from authority if the expert witness is truly an expert in his field, and is speaking within his area of expertise.
“What intrinsic feature of monkeys, (apes, actually) or any other higher mammal makes their minds innately untrustworthy? In fact, we can take this a step further, given that Darwin's conclusion about the origins of man are correct, and claim that this actually substantiates the trustworthiness of our minds!”
That’s something of a red herring. The real issue is whether an unreliable process can yield a reliable result.
If natural selection was never designed to select for rationality, then why should we assume that a brain which is the incidental byproduct of natural selection enjoy a reliable purchase on the truth?
“I would argue that there are good reasons to trust ape minds -- they have survived the perils of nature for millions of years, and along the way, learned that they could trust the natural world around them to provide constancy. Those minds that were the brightest, that developed innovative methods for catching fish or making spears, were most likely to exist in a social structure in which this knowledge could be shared and propogate throughout their progeny.”
The problem with this argument is the absence of any connection between rationality and survivability.
Coach roaches survive just fine without higher cortical functions.
So what makes Morgan think that intelligence confers a survival advantage when so many species lack higher consciousness?
Of course, a Christian would attribute their survival to the rationality of the Creator.
“Because human beings are part of the natural universe, and are products of that universe, they will always be limited in their perspective on certain features of the universe. That warrants skepticism. It does not, however, warrant throwing out those things we have learned from nature, secrets that we have wrested away from the blind, mute, and uncaring universe.”
Danny is now begging the question by assuming that we’re rational. But is this confidence justified by his evolutionary worldview?
“Why should we abandon trust in the regularity and uniformity of nature, when it has brought us this far? Why should we relegate the method of testing and applying knowledge tentatively, until it proves itself (via the scientific method, or in pragmatic real life experience) enough for us to "trust" it, to the trash can? That method is what led to tools, and to skyscrapers. Its success is as apparent as our own existence, and with tangiable results that "trust" alone has never given us.”
All he’s done here is to assume that secularism is true.
How would a world characterized by divine creation, providence, and miraculous intervention be any less livable?
“Why trust a monkey mind? If we want to survive, we must trust our minds. If we do not want to be self-refuting, we must trust our minds.”
A man who’s high on acid has to trust his mind. It’s still the only mind he’s got, even if it’s delusional in its altered state of consciousness.
It would still be “self-refuting” for a man who’s too stoned to think straight to doubt his mental faculties.
Unfortunately, his self-refuting argument won’t cushion the fall as he leaps from a skyscraper.
“That said, need we trust its convictions as if they are representative of the permanance and inviolate laws of nature? Of course not. Don't trust it absolutely. Test its convictions against the sounding board of Nature.”
Poor little Danny never gets the point of the argument. If the rationality of an evolutionary brain is the very point at issue, then “testing its convictions against the sounding board of nature” is a futile exercise since we can only know if we pass or fail the test by assuming that our mind is reliable is a reliable instrument to tally the score. How can an incorrect mind correct a test?
A psychotic doesn’t know until he hits the pavement that he flunked the test, at which point it’s a little late in the game to cram for the next exam.
“I would flip the table on our special creationist friends and ask, if instead of the uniformity of nature, and the laws of physics, our minds were the products of some divine fiat or "poof" mechanism, why should we trust that?”
Ah, back to “poof.” Danny is Babinski’s loyal little parakeet. Babinski teaches Danny to say “poof” on cue, and so he does, time and again, as if his mastery of baby -talk were a substitute for rational discourse.
Let’s see: why would we trust a mind that’s the artifact of rational designer? Gee, I’m stumped.
“While we can know our universe to at least a limited extent, and recognize that its symmetry, its uniformity, and its material properties give rise to minds…”
Do material properties “give rise” to minds? Perhaps Danny can show us a slide set of material properties “giving rise” to mental properties.
What are we looking for? Swirls of smoke spelling the alphabet?
“We know nothing of ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’. We know nothing of what those substances are, how they contribute to mind, and what properties they would confer to mind.”
Danny’s like a man who can’t find his glasses because he’s wearing them. Wherever did he put them? He’s turned his apartment upside down, but he can’t find his glasses anywhere. He must have lost them on the bus. Or was it the locker room? Maybe the café? He does everything but look in the mirror.
Danny is a self-admitted know-nothing because he only studies one side of the argument. If he did some serious reading in philosophy of mind, he’d at least be conversant with the range of positions and their respective supporting arguments.
Although Danny is training to be a scientist, he lacks intellectual curiosity. Danny won’t debate the likes of me because I don’t “play by the rules.”
And it’s true that I won’t play poker with a card sharp.
Danny has been taught the rules, and he does what he’s told. One must never question the rules. The rules are immutable and indubitable.
The game may be out of touch with reality, but what matters is to play by the rules.
A tornado may rip away the roof of the casino, but the game goes on. The walls may be gone, but the game goes on.
The city may be leveled, but you must never take your eyes off the table.
That’s because there is no reality outside the game. The rules dictate what’s real. The rules erect their own walls to shield secular prejudice from falsification.
Ashamed of Their Ancestry
A while back, I was reading the idthefuture site, where I was referred to an article at an apologetics site on materialism. Joe Carter, in the article, "The Mystical Monkey Mind: Four Common Errors of Naturalistic Epistemology," presented a quote from Darwin which I saw pop up again the other day:
“With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has always been developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”
It appears, at first glance, a serious problem: if our minds are "just" monkey brains, why do we trust them? But, as is attributed to Solomon as being said, "The first to present his case seems right, until another comes along to examine him." (Prov 18:17, NIV) Let us examine the argument posed by Joe, Paul Manata, and others.
First, should Darwin's opinion on the matter, without presenting any particular argument for support, hold any weight? Not really. After all, this seems quite self-refuting -- if the man who pieced together the case that we descended from great apes then concluded our minds untrustworthy for that reason, then his "case" is obviously imperiled. In fact, we might make a simple conclusion from this statement: it is self-refuting. Just like making the statement, "I always lie," there is no way to escape the circular destruction of this logic. If your mind's convictions are not trustworthy, how do you even convince yourself of, or trust in, the validity of that conviction?
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/07/ashamed-of-their-ancestry.html
***END-QUOTE***
Danny doesn’t understand what a dilemma is. Darwin’s argument is self-refuting in the sense that it poses a dilemma:
We rely on our minds to construct a philosophy of mind. But what if our philosophy of mind undermines rationality?
If our minds are reliable, then a philosophy of mind that undermines rationality is a self-refuting philosophy.
So the problem would not be with my mind, but with my philosophy of mind.
If, however, you’re going to stick with a philosophy of mind that undermines rationality, then that does, indeed, pose an intractable dilemma.
The fact that you are rational doesn’t prove that your philosophy of mind is equally rational.
The fact that Darwin was rational doesn’t prove that Darwinism is rational. Evolutionary epistemology could well be self-refuting.
“Also, this argument to reject the soundness of the human mind may be a variant of the genetic fallacy -- based on a categorical rejection of an argument or idea simply based on where it originated, rather than on sound reasoning.”
The genetic fallacy is not always a fallacy. If someone is psychotic, or if someone is high on acid, then we do discount his observation about pink rats running amok in the cellar.
Conversely, there can be a valid argument from authority if the expert witness is truly an expert in his field, and is speaking within his area of expertise.
“What intrinsic feature of monkeys, (apes, actually) or any other higher mammal makes their minds innately untrustworthy? In fact, we can take this a step further, given that Darwin's conclusion about the origins of man are correct, and claim that this actually substantiates the trustworthiness of our minds!”
That’s something of a red herring. The real issue is whether an unreliable process can yield a reliable result.
If natural selection was never designed to select for rationality, then why should we assume that a brain which is the incidental byproduct of natural selection enjoy a reliable purchase on the truth?
“I would argue that there are good reasons to trust ape minds -- they have survived the perils of nature for millions of years, and along the way, learned that they could trust the natural world around them to provide constancy. Those minds that were the brightest, that developed innovative methods for catching fish or making spears, were most likely to exist in a social structure in which this knowledge could be shared and propogate throughout their progeny.”
The problem with this argument is the absence of any connection between rationality and survivability.
Coach roaches survive just fine without higher cortical functions.
So what makes Morgan think that intelligence confers a survival advantage when so many species lack higher consciousness?
Of course, a Christian would attribute their survival to the rationality of the Creator.
“Because human beings are part of the natural universe, and are products of that universe, they will always be limited in their perspective on certain features of the universe. That warrants skepticism. It does not, however, warrant throwing out those things we have learned from nature, secrets that we have wrested away from the blind, mute, and uncaring universe.”
Danny is now begging the question by assuming that we’re rational. But is this confidence justified by his evolutionary worldview?
“Why should we abandon trust in the regularity and uniformity of nature, when it has brought us this far? Why should we relegate the method of testing and applying knowledge tentatively, until it proves itself (via the scientific method, or in pragmatic real life experience) enough for us to "trust" it, to the trash can? That method is what led to tools, and to skyscrapers. Its success is as apparent as our own existence, and with tangiable results that "trust" alone has never given us.”
All he’s done here is to assume that secularism is true.
How would a world characterized by divine creation, providence, and miraculous intervention be any less livable?
“Why trust a monkey mind? If we want to survive, we must trust our minds. If we do not want to be self-refuting, we must trust our minds.”
A man who’s high on acid has to trust his mind. It’s still the only mind he’s got, even if it’s delusional in its altered state of consciousness.
It would still be “self-refuting” for a man who’s too stoned to think straight to doubt his mental faculties.
Unfortunately, his self-refuting argument won’t cushion the fall as he leaps from a skyscraper.
“That said, need we trust its convictions as if they are representative of the permanance and inviolate laws of nature? Of course not. Don't trust it absolutely. Test its convictions against the sounding board of Nature.”
Poor little Danny never gets the point of the argument. If the rationality of an evolutionary brain is the very point at issue, then “testing its convictions against the sounding board of nature” is a futile exercise since we can only know if we pass or fail the test by assuming that our mind is reliable is a reliable instrument to tally the score. How can an incorrect mind correct a test?
A psychotic doesn’t know until he hits the pavement that he flunked the test, at which point it’s a little late in the game to cram for the next exam.
“I would flip the table on our special creationist friends and ask, if instead of the uniformity of nature, and the laws of physics, our minds were the products of some divine fiat or "poof" mechanism, why should we trust that?”
Ah, back to “poof.” Danny is Babinski’s loyal little parakeet. Babinski teaches Danny to say “poof” on cue, and so he does, time and again, as if his mastery of baby -talk were a substitute for rational discourse.
Let’s see: why would we trust a mind that’s the artifact of rational designer? Gee, I’m stumped.
“While we can know our universe to at least a limited extent, and recognize that its symmetry, its uniformity, and its material properties give rise to minds…”
Do material properties “give rise” to minds? Perhaps Danny can show us a slide set of material properties “giving rise” to mental properties.
What are we looking for? Swirls of smoke spelling the alphabet?
“We know nothing of ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’. We know nothing of what those substances are, how they contribute to mind, and what properties they would confer to mind.”
Danny’s like a man who can’t find his glasses because he’s wearing them. Wherever did he put them? He’s turned his apartment upside down, but he can’t find his glasses anywhere. He must have lost them on the bus. Or was it the locker room? Maybe the café? He does everything but look in the mirror.
Danny is a self-admitted know-nothing because he only studies one side of the argument. If he did some serious reading in philosophy of mind, he’d at least be conversant with the range of positions and their respective supporting arguments.
Although Danny is training to be a scientist, he lacks intellectual curiosity. Danny won’t debate the likes of me because I don’t “play by the rules.”
And it’s true that I won’t play poker with a card sharp.
Danny has been taught the rules, and he does what he’s told. One must never question the rules. The rules are immutable and indubitable.
The game may be out of touch with reality, but what matters is to play by the rules.
A tornado may rip away the roof of the casino, but the game goes on. The walls may be gone, but the game goes on.
The city may be leveled, but you must never take your eyes off the table.
That’s because there is no reality outside the game. The rules dictate what’s real. The rules erect their own walls to shield secular prejudice from falsification.
Why debunk the debunkers?
***QUOTE***
Marianne said:
Hi Steve,
Do you really think you're going to prove anything to these apostates? They are willful self-deceivers and do not want to learn. What do you hope to gain by devoting your time to them instead of to the Lord? I will pray for you, and for the lost before it is too late for them. But by expending so much of your precious energy on infidels, you are doing exactly what they want you to do.
In Christ,
Marianne Apfelburg
***END-QUOTE***
Thanks Marianne.
This is my rationale:
To begin with, I don’t expect to win over a hardened apostate. That’s not my target audience. The apostate is simply my foil.
My real audience is twofold:
1.Not every Christian has a ready-made answer to attacks on his faith. Not every Christian has access to a decent library.
When objections are allowed to pile up, it can have a cumulative and corrosive effect on one’s faith.
In spiritual warfare, it isn’t necessary to kill a Christian’s faith to take him out of action. It is only necessary to cripple his faith.
He doesn’t lose his faith, but he loses his confidence.
2.In addition, not every unbeliever is a reprobate. Some are backsliders. Some just don’t know any better. Some are sitting on the fence, waiting to see who wins the argument.
The Secular Web is the world’s leading website in the cause of militant atheism.
As such, it has quite a constituency.
A while back, it started a weblog (The Secular Outpost), which is a spin-off of The Secular Web.
This was an attempt to extend its reach. Extend its sphere of influence.
I assume The Secular Outpost draws from the preexisting constituency of The Secular Web.
The Secular Outpost also has a number of links to other secular sites.
DC is one of these. I assume that it gets a lot of crossover traffic from The Secular Outpost.
Why do I pick on the DC rather than the Secular Web or the Secular Outpost or some other site?
For a few practical reasons:
1.The Secular Web has been around for years. It has bottomless archives. It presents too big a target. It’s unmanageably large and diffuse in terms of the sheer amount of material one would have to sift through.
2.Contributors to The Secular Web don’t post all that often. Moreover, guys like Edis and Lowder don’t present much of a target. They are grown-ups. They pick their battles. They are too shrewd to stick their neck out the way the Debunkers do.
3.Of the various links, DC is the only site that regularly assails the Christian faith.
4.I assume that DC attracts a certain audience because its contributors are ex-Christian and ex-ministers. They have the inside dish, right?
5.Loftus bills himself as a student of Craig. This has PR appeal.
Well, if someone who trained under a Christian apologist to be a Christian apologist defects from the faith, then what does that tell you about the Christian faith. The more you know, the less you believe, right?
6.The Debunkers have nothing original to say. It’s a garage sale, hawking kitschy criticisms of the Christian faith.
But that makes it a useful foil. At this stage of the game, all of the objections to Christianity are going to be stock objections.
So DC presents a nice, compact target.
If a militant atheist chooses to walk around with a bull’s-eye on his back, I’m happy to accommodate him.
Sure, DC may be no more distinguished than a roadside salesman peddling velvet paintings, but when you get right down to it, the case against Christianity doesn’t get much better than this.
7.Am I doing exactly what they want me to do? I seriously doubt that when Loftus inaugurated DC, he expected my colleagues and I to dog him every step of the way. To see his every grand disproof of the faith shot down a few hours (at most) after it was posted.
Marianne said:
Hi Steve,
Do you really think you're going to prove anything to these apostates? They are willful self-deceivers and do not want to learn. What do you hope to gain by devoting your time to them instead of to the Lord? I will pray for you, and for the lost before it is too late for them. But by expending so much of your precious energy on infidels, you are doing exactly what they want you to do.
In Christ,
Marianne Apfelburg
***END-QUOTE***
Thanks Marianne.
This is my rationale:
To begin with, I don’t expect to win over a hardened apostate. That’s not my target audience. The apostate is simply my foil.
My real audience is twofold:
1.Not every Christian has a ready-made answer to attacks on his faith. Not every Christian has access to a decent library.
When objections are allowed to pile up, it can have a cumulative and corrosive effect on one’s faith.
In spiritual warfare, it isn’t necessary to kill a Christian’s faith to take him out of action. It is only necessary to cripple his faith.
He doesn’t lose his faith, but he loses his confidence.
2.In addition, not every unbeliever is a reprobate. Some are backsliders. Some just don’t know any better. Some are sitting on the fence, waiting to see who wins the argument.
The Secular Web is the world’s leading website in the cause of militant atheism.
As such, it has quite a constituency.
A while back, it started a weblog (The Secular Outpost), which is a spin-off of The Secular Web.
This was an attempt to extend its reach. Extend its sphere of influence.
I assume The Secular Outpost draws from the preexisting constituency of The Secular Web.
The Secular Outpost also has a number of links to other secular sites.
DC is one of these. I assume that it gets a lot of crossover traffic from The Secular Outpost.
Why do I pick on the DC rather than the Secular Web or the Secular Outpost or some other site?
For a few practical reasons:
1.The Secular Web has been around for years. It has bottomless archives. It presents too big a target. It’s unmanageably large and diffuse in terms of the sheer amount of material one would have to sift through.
2.Contributors to The Secular Web don’t post all that often. Moreover, guys like Edis and Lowder don’t present much of a target. They are grown-ups. They pick their battles. They are too shrewd to stick their neck out the way the Debunkers do.
3.Of the various links, DC is the only site that regularly assails the Christian faith.
4.I assume that DC attracts a certain audience because its contributors are ex-Christian and ex-ministers. They have the inside dish, right?
5.Loftus bills himself as a student of Craig. This has PR appeal.
Well, if someone who trained under a Christian apologist to be a Christian apologist defects from the faith, then what does that tell you about the Christian faith. The more you know, the less you believe, right?
6.The Debunkers have nothing original to say. It’s a garage sale, hawking kitschy criticisms of the Christian faith.
But that makes it a useful foil. At this stage of the game, all of the objections to Christianity are going to be stock objections.
So DC presents a nice, compact target.
If a militant atheist chooses to walk around with a bull’s-eye on his back, I’m happy to accommodate him.
Sure, DC may be no more distinguished than a roadside salesman peddling velvet paintings, but when you get right down to it, the case against Christianity doesn’t get much better than this.
7.Am I doing exactly what they want me to do? I seriously doubt that when Loftus inaugurated DC, he expected my colleagues and I to dog him every step of the way. To see his every grand disproof of the faith shot down a few hours (at most) after it was posted.
Saving the phenomena
I’ve been asked to explain myself on scientific antirealism.
Scientific antirealism is as old as Greek philosophy. Greek philosophy distinguished between natural science and mathematical science. Natural science supposedly uncovered the true causes of things, whereas mathematical science was merely consistent with the observable phenomena, and more than one mathematical construct might be empirically adequate or equivalent.
According to scientific realism, our theories are descriptive of reality. Here are a couple of definitions:
“Scientific realists hold that the characteristic product of successful scientific research is knowledge of largely theory-independent phenomena and that such knowledge is possible (indeed actual) even in those cases in which the relevant phenomena are not, in any non-question-begging sense, observable…Scientific realism is thus the common sense (or common science) conception that, subject to a recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most scientific knowledge is approximate, we are justified in accepting the most secure findings of scientists ‘at face value.’"
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/
“Scientific realism is a view in the philosophy of science about the nature of scientific success, an answer to the question "what does the success of science involve?" The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities (objects, processes and events) apparently talked about by scientific theories. Roughly put, scientific realism is the thesis that the unobservable things talked about by science are little different from ordinary observable things (such as tables and chairs).
Scientific realism involves two basic positions. First, it is a set of claims about the features of an ideal scientific theory; an ideal theory is the sort of theory science aims to produce. Second, it is the commitment that science will eventually produce theories very much like an ideal theory and that science has done pretty well thus far in some domains. It is important to note that one might be a scientific realist regarding some sciences while not being a realist regarding others.
According to scientific realism, an ideal scientific theory has the following features:
_ The claims the theory makes about unobservables are either true or false, and they are true or false depending on whether the entities talked about by the theory exist and are correctly described by the theory. This is the semantic commitment of scientific realism.
_ The unobservables described by the scientific theory exist objectively and mind-independently. This is the metaphysical commitment of scientific realism.
_ There are reasons to believe some significant portion of what the theory says about unobservables. This is the epistemological commitment.
Combining the first and the second claim entails that an ideal scientific theory says true things about genuinely existing unobservable entities. The third claim says that we have reasons to believe that the things said about unobservable entities are true.
Scientific realism usually holds that science makes progress, i.e. that scientific theories usually get successively better. For this reason, many people, scientific realist and otherwise, hold that realism should make sense of the progress of science in terms of theories being successively more like the ideal theory that scientific realists describe.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_realism
There are a variety of antirealist alternatives, but the basic idea of scientific antirealism is that our theories are useful fictions.
A Feynman diagram is a good example of a useful fiction. The real world doesn’t resemble a Feynman diagram, yet it’s a very helpful way of modeling quantum interactions.
The fundamental argument in favor of scientific realism is the success of scientific theorizing. Just look at the amazing technological strides that the scientific method has made over the past few centuries.
Surely the scientific method must be on to something. Our theorries must be approximately true to be so successful.
This is a very appealing argument. Ironically, though, the leading objections to scientific realism come from science!
1.There is the question of just how accessible the scientific evidence is to the scientist.
i) We tend to act as if our head was a camera taking snapshots of the world beyond the viewfinder.
On this view, the snapshot resembles the world. Photographical realism distinguishes a photograph from an abstract painting.
But according to a scientific theory of sensation, our perception of the world is far more convoluted.
The mind does not enjoy direct access to the external world. Rather, what we perceive comes to us in the form of encoded and reencoded information, viz. electromagnet information converted to electrochemical information.
If this is true, then our mental representation of the world is more like a cryptogram than a photograph.
ii) Notice, too, that a scientific theory of sensation is somewhat deceptive, if not downright illusory. It describes sensory processing as if the scientist were an independent observer, watching the stimulus impinge on the percipient.
But, of course, he’s really working in reverse. He is, himself, at the receiving end of this process. He is trying to retrace the process.
Yet he’s in no position to objectify the process, for he is unable to escape his own port of entry. Between the sensory input and the conscious readout there lies a blackbox.
How can a scientific theory be truly descriptive of the world if the world is inaccessible to the scientist?
It may seem to be accessible, but that’s the problem. All we have to go by are appearances—appearances several steps removed from the object of our theorizing.
2.Another problem is that a theory may be very successful without making any sense. Quantum mechanics is a textbook example.
The more realistically you interpret quantum mechanics, the more unreal it seems. Einstein and Bohr had a lifeline debate over this issue. Penrose and Hawking are having the very same debate.
3.But that’s not the worst of it. For false theories can be highly successful. Newtonian physics was highly successful. Ether theories were highly successful.
4. There is also the problem of empirical equivalence.
For example, you might think that geocentrism is a lost cause, but consider an exchange I once had with Dr. John Byl (PhD in astronomy from the UBC):
[Hays] As to geocentrism, I don't see that this is even a question of science proper. According to modern astronomy, both the sun and its satellites are in a state of mutual motion, so there is no fixed frame of reference.
In addition, it has always seemed to me that the theories of Mach and Einstein on equivalent forces and equivalent reference-frames would make it easier to defend geocentrism, if one wanted to.
[Byl] Yes. According to general relativity one should get the same observational results, regardless of whether the earth is considered to be at rest, with the rest of the universe revolving about it, or vice versa. (See D. Lynden-Bell et al., "Mach's Principle from the Relativistic Constraint Equations," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1995 Vol 272: 150-160).
So realism and antirealism have to answer the same question: how can a mistaken theory be successful?
My own answer is to distinguish between a correlation and a correspondence.
Take a musical CD. If you play a CD, the recording will correspond to a live performance. By that I mean, the recorded sound resembles the live performance.
Now, as we all know, what digital reproduction does is to digitize an audio signal.
So there’s no qualitative resemblance between the binary data and the sound of a live performance. Rather, the sound is encoded in the binary data.
And yet, by that very same token, there is a quantifiable correlation between the input signal and the abstract information which is stored on the disk.
And that’s why it’s possible to reconstruct the original sound from the digital process.
That, in turn, how I would account for the utility of useful fictions. While our perception of the world doesn’t correspond with the world, it does correlate with the world.
That’s how we successfully perceive the world. And that’s how our theoretical constructs, which promote our observations to a higher level of abstraction, can be successful without their being true.
For a few online resources regarding the realist/antirealist debate, cf.:
http://www.frame-poythress.org/poythress_articles/1990ReviewMoreland.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/young_davis_a_3.html
http://www.csc.twu.ca/byl/modelstest.doc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_empiricism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_holism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underdetermination
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationality-historicist/
http://www.loyno.edu/~folse/Laudanoutline.html
For a few hardcopy resources, cf.:
Del Ratzsch, Science & Its Limits (IVP 2000)
J. P. Moreland, Christianity & the Nature of Science (Baker 1989)
W. H. Newton-Smith, ed. A Companion to The Philosophy of Science (Blackwell 2001).
Bas Van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance (Yale 2002).
Scientific antirealism is as old as Greek philosophy. Greek philosophy distinguished between natural science and mathematical science. Natural science supposedly uncovered the true causes of things, whereas mathematical science was merely consistent with the observable phenomena, and more than one mathematical construct might be empirically adequate or equivalent.
According to scientific realism, our theories are descriptive of reality. Here are a couple of definitions:
“Scientific realists hold that the characteristic product of successful scientific research is knowledge of largely theory-independent phenomena and that such knowledge is possible (indeed actual) even in those cases in which the relevant phenomena are not, in any non-question-begging sense, observable…Scientific realism is thus the common sense (or common science) conception that, subject to a recognition that scientific methods are fallible and that most scientific knowledge is approximate, we are justified in accepting the most secure findings of scientists ‘at face value.’"
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/
“Scientific realism is a view in the philosophy of science about the nature of scientific success, an answer to the question "what does the success of science involve?" The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities (objects, processes and events) apparently talked about by scientific theories. Roughly put, scientific realism is the thesis that the unobservable things talked about by science are little different from ordinary observable things (such as tables and chairs).
Scientific realism involves two basic positions. First, it is a set of claims about the features of an ideal scientific theory; an ideal theory is the sort of theory science aims to produce. Second, it is the commitment that science will eventually produce theories very much like an ideal theory and that science has done pretty well thus far in some domains. It is important to note that one might be a scientific realist regarding some sciences while not being a realist regarding others.
According to scientific realism, an ideal scientific theory has the following features:
_ The claims the theory makes about unobservables are either true or false, and they are true or false depending on whether the entities talked about by the theory exist and are correctly described by the theory. This is the semantic commitment of scientific realism.
_ The unobservables described by the scientific theory exist objectively and mind-independently. This is the metaphysical commitment of scientific realism.
_ There are reasons to believe some significant portion of what the theory says about unobservables. This is the epistemological commitment.
Combining the first and the second claim entails that an ideal scientific theory says true things about genuinely existing unobservable entities. The third claim says that we have reasons to believe that the things said about unobservable entities are true.
Scientific realism usually holds that science makes progress, i.e. that scientific theories usually get successively better. For this reason, many people, scientific realist and otherwise, hold that realism should make sense of the progress of science in terms of theories being successively more like the ideal theory that scientific realists describe.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_realism
There are a variety of antirealist alternatives, but the basic idea of scientific antirealism is that our theories are useful fictions.
A Feynman diagram is a good example of a useful fiction. The real world doesn’t resemble a Feynman diagram, yet it’s a very helpful way of modeling quantum interactions.
The fundamental argument in favor of scientific realism is the success of scientific theorizing. Just look at the amazing technological strides that the scientific method has made over the past few centuries.
Surely the scientific method must be on to something. Our theorries must be approximately true to be so successful.
This is a very appealing argument. Ironically, though, the leading objections to scientific realism come from science!
1.There is the question of just how accessible the scientific evidence is to the scientist.
i) We tend to act as if our head was a camera taking snapshots of the world beyond the viewfinder.
On this view, the snapshot resembles the world. Photographical realism distinguishes a photograph from an abstract painting.
But according to a scientific theory of sensation, our perception of the world is far more convoluted.
The mind does not enjoy direct access to the external world. Rather, what we perceive comes to us in the form of encoded and reencoded information, viz. electromagnet information converted to electrochemical information.
If this is true, then our mental representation of the world is more like a cryptogram than a photograph.
ii) Notice, too, that a scientific theory of sensation is somewhat deceptive, if not downright illusory. It describes sensory processing as if the scientist were an independent observer, watching the stimulus impinge on the percipient.
But, of course, he’s really working in reverse. He is, himself, at the receiving end of this process. He is trying to retrace the process.
Yet he’s in no position to objectify the process, for he is unable to escape his own port of entry. Between the sensory input and the conscious readout there lies a blackbox.
How can a scientific theory be truly descriptive of the world if the world is inaccessible to the scientist?
It may seem to be accessible, but that’s the problem. All we have to go by are appearances—appearances several steps removed from the object of our theorizing.
2.Another problem is that a theory may be very successful without making any sense. Quantum mechanics is a textbook example.
The more realistically you interpret quantum mechanics, the more unreal it seems. Einstein and Bohr had a lifeline debate over this issue. Penrose and Hawking are having the very same debate.
3.But that’s not the worst of it. For false theories can be highly successful. Newtonian physics was highly successful. Ether theories were highly successful.
4. There is also the problem of empirical equivalence.
For example, you might think that geocentrism is a lost cause, but consider an exchange I once had with Dr. John Byl (PhD in astronomy from the UBC):
[Hays] As to geocentrism, I don't see that this is even a question of science proper. According to modern astronomy, both the sun and its satellites are in a state of mutual motion, so there is no fixed frame of reference.
In addition, it has always seemed to me that the theories of Mach and Einstein on equivalent forces and equivalent reference-frames would make it easier to defend geocentrism, if one wanted to.
[Byl] Yes. According to general relativity one should get the same observational results, regardless of whether the earth is considered to be at rest, with the rest of the universe revolving about it, or vice versa. (See D. Lynden-Bell et al., "Mach's Principle from the Relativistic Constraint Equations," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1995 Vol 272: 150-160).
So realism and antirealism have to answer the same question: how can a mistaken theory be successful?
My own answer is to distinguish between a correlation and a correspondence.
Take a musical CD. If you play a CD, the recording will correspond to a live performance. By that I mean, the recorded sound resembles the live performance.
Now, as we all know, what digital reproduction does is to digitize an audio signal.
So there’s no qualitative resemblance between the binary data and the sound of a live performance. Rather, the sound is encoded in the binary data.
And yet, by that very same token, there is a quantifiable correlation between the input signal and the abstract information which is stored on the disk.
And that’s why it’s possible to reconstruct the original sound from the digital process.
That, in turn, how I would account for the utility of useful fictions. While our perception of the world doesn’t correspond with the world, it does correlate with the world.
That’s how we successfully perceive the world. And that’s how our theoretical constructs, which promote our observations to a higher level of abstraction, can be successful without their being true.
For a few online resources regarding the realist/antirealist debate, cf.:
http://www.frame-poythress.org/poythress_articles/1990ReviewMoreland.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/young_davis_a_3.html
http://www.csc.twu.ca/byl/modelstest.doc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_empiricism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_holism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underdetermination
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationality-historicist/
http://www.loyno.edu/~folse/Laudanoutline.html
For a few hardcopy resources, cf.:
Del Ratzsch, Science & Its Limits (IVP 2000)
J. P. Moreland, Christianity & the Nature of Science (Baker 1989)
W. H. Newton-Smith, ed. A Companion to The Philosophy of Science (Blackwell 2001).
Bas Van Fraassen, The Empirical Stance (Yale 2002).
Philosophy of (The Christian) Religion
Introduction: This is comparable to a book on the Philosophy of Religion. There are a few differences between this "book" and other books. You will notice that there are no (well, just one or two) arguments against the positions I've listed. This is because this "book" is also meant to substitute as an apologetics "book" for the Christian faith, hence the offensive nature. Furthermore, this "book" is intended to present the Philosophy of Christianity from a Reformed perspective and also a presupposition approach to answering many of these questions (or, what I feel is in the same “vein” as presuppositional-esk answers). I also included some dated (or, stated in a non-analytical way) statements of Omniscience and Omnipotence, the reason for this is because I feel that if one could just state the traditional reformed understandings of these doctrines one would avoid many of the so-called problems with these doctrines. I have also included "chapters" in this "book" that are not found in other Philosophy of Religion texts (e.g., Christian Theism and Abstracta). I hope this "book" serves to increase your understanding of the Reformed Faith (or, in other words, Christian Faith) as well as enables you to better defend it.
CHAPTER 1: Arguments For God's Existence
i. If Knowledge Then God: The Epistemological Theistic Arguments of Plantinga and Van Til. - Dr. James Anderson
ii. Two Dozen (Or So) Theistic Arguments. - Dr. Alvin Plantinga
iii. The Argument From Reason. - Dr. Victor Reppert
iv. The Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ethical Foundations for Morality
. - Dr. William Lane Craig
CHAPTER 2: The Problem of Evil
i. The Problem of Evil. - Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. The Bible on The Problem of Evil: Insights from Romans 3:1-8,21-26; 5:1-5; 8:28-39 -John M. Frame
iii. Evil As Evidence for God -Grek Koukl
iv. Why Calvinists Can't Solve The Problem of Evil. -Dr. Victor Reppert
v. Why Calvinists Can't Solve The Problem of Evil (A Direct Response). -Steve Hays
vi. Why Calvinists Can't Solve The Problem of Evil (An Indirect Response). - Frame, Adams, Piper, Sproul et al
vii. Euthyphro's Dilemma. -Greg Koukl
viii. Euthyphro, Hume, And The Biblical God. -John M. Frame
ix. The Problem of Evil. -Greg Welty
CHAPTER 3: Free Will and Moral Responsibility
i. Free Will And Moral Responsibility. -John M. Frame
ii. Determinism, Chance And Freedom. - John M. Frame
iii. Free Will And Moral Responsibility Are Not Inconsistent. - Dr. Loraine Boettner
iv. On Free Will. - John Calvin
v. Compatibalism, Incompatibalism, Pessimism, Moral Responsibility, Metaphysics and Moral Psychology, and Challenges to Pessimism. - Galen Stawson, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
vi. Free Will And Responsibility. - Dr. John Byl
vii. Arminianism and the Idol of Free Will. - John Owen
CHAPTER 4: The Attributes of God
[A] Time And Eternity:
i. Is 'Timeless' Divine Action Coherent. - Dr. Michael Sudduth
ii. Eternity. - Dr. Paul Helm
iii. Is It Coherent to suppose that there Exists an Omniscient Timeless Being? - Dr. Michael Sudduth
iv. God in Time. -John M. Frame
[B] Omniscience and Human Freedom:
i. Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. - John M. Frame
ii. God's Foreknowledge and Free Will. - Stephen Charnock
iii. Does Divine Timelessness Resolve the Problem of Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. - Dr. Michael Sudduth
iv. Cross Examination: Foreordination and Free Will. - Dr. Greg Bahnsen
[C] Omnipotence:
i. Omnipotence. -Dr. Joshua Hoffman and Dr. Gary Rosencrantz
ii. Omnipotence. -Dr. Edward Wierenga
iii. Omnipotence. -Geerhardus Vos
iv. The Lord of Power. -John M. Frame
v. Divine Omnipotence. -Dr. Sam Storms
CHAPTER 5: Miracles
i. The Problem of Miracles. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. Miracles: A Test Case . -Dr. Vern Poythress
iii. Counterfeit Miracles. -B. B. Warfield
CHAPTER 6: Faith and Reason
i. Ready to Reason. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. The Problem of Faith. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
iii. Natural Theology and the Rationality of Religious Belief. -Dr. Michael Sudduth
iv. Theism, Atheism, and Rationality. -Dr. Alvin Plantinga
v. How To Believe in God in The 2000s. -John M. Frame
vi. Faith and Reason. -Dr. Michael Polanyi
vii. Faith. -B. B. Warfield
CHAPTER 7: Religious Language
i. The Problem of Religious Language. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. IS HUMAN LANGUAGE ADEQUATE TO TALK ABOUT GOD? A CRITIQUE OF VERIFICATIONISM AND THEOLOGICAL PESSIMISM. -Dr. Michael Sudduth
CHAPTER 8: Christian Theism and Abstracta
i. An Examination of Theistic Conceptual Realism As An Alternative To Theistic Activism. -Greg Welty
ii. Theism and Mathematical Realism. -Dr. John Byl
iii. Logic. -John M. Frame
iv. Reforming Ontology and Logic in the Light of the Trinity: An Application of Van Til's Idea of Analogy . -Dr. Vern Poythress
v. Creation and Mathematics; Or, What Does God Have To Do With Numbers. -Dr. Vern Poythress
CHAPTER 9: Christianity and Science
i. Why Scientists Must Believe in God: Divine Attributes of Scientific Law. -Dr. Vern Poythress
ii. Is Intelligent Design Science?. -John M. Frame
iii. Scripture and Geologists. -Dr. John Byl
iv. When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible. -Dr. Alvin Plantinga
v. An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. -Dr. Alvin Plantinga
vi. Naturalism Defeated. -Dr. Alvin Plantinga
vii. Revelation, Speculation, and Science. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
viii. Science, Subjectivity, and Scripture. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
CHAPTER 10: Christian Ethics
i. What Is Theonomy?. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. The Authority of God's Law. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
iii. Cross Examination: A Biblical Standard For Civil Law. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
iv. Penultimate Thoughts on Theonomy. -John M. Frame
v. Some Thoughts on Theonomy. -G.I. Williamson
vi.Christian Ethics: Basic Principles. -John M. Frame
CHAPTER 1: Arguments For God's Existence
i. If Knowledge Then God: The Epistemological Theistic Arguments of Plantinga and Van Til. - Dr. James Anderson
ii. Two Dozen (Or So) Theistic Arguments. - Dr. Alvin Plantinga
iii. The Argument From Reason. - Dr. Victor Reppert
iv. The Indispensability of Theological Meta-Ethical Foundations for Morality
. - Dr. William Lane Craig
CHAPTER 2: The Problem of Evil
i. The Problem of Evil. - Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. The Bible on The Problem of Evil: Insights from Romans 3:1-8,21-26; 5:1-5; 8:28-39 -John M. Frame
iii. Evil As Evidence for God -Grek Koukl
iv. Why Calvinists Can't Solve The Problem of Evil. -Dr. Victor Reppert
v. Why Calvinists Can't Solve The Problem of Evil (A Direct Response). -Steve Hays
vi. Why Calvinists Can't Solve The Problem of Evil (An Indirect Response). - Frame, Adams, Piper, Sproul et al
vii. Euthyphro's Dilemma. -Greg Koukl
viii. Euthyphro, Hume, And The Biblical God. -John M. Frame
ix. The Problem of Evil. -Greg Welty
CHAPTER 3: Free Will and Moral Responsibility
i. Free Will And Moral Responsibility. -John M. Frame
ii. Determinism, Chance And Freedom. - John M. Frame
iii. Free Will And Moral Responsibility Are Not Inconsistent. - Dr. Loraine Boettner
iv. On Free Will. - John Calvin
v. Compatibalism, Incompatibalism, Pessimism, Moral Responsibility, Metaphysics and Moral Psychology, and Challenges to Pessimism. - Galen Stawson, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
vi. Free Will And Responsibility. - Dr. John Byl
vii. Arminianism and the Idol of Free Will. - John Owen
CHAPTER 4: The Attributes of God
[A] Time And Eternity:
i. Is 'Timeless' Divine Action Coherent. - Dr. Michael Sudduth
ii. Eternity. - Dr. Paul Helm
iii. Is It Coherent to suppose that there Exists an Omniscient Timeless Being? - Dr. Michael Sudduth
iv. God in Time. -John M. Frame
[B] Omniscience and Human Freedom:
i. Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. - John M. Frame
ii. God's Foreknowledge and Free Will. - Stephen Charnock
iii. Does Divine Timelessness Resolve the Problem of Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. - Dr. Michael Sudduth
iv. Cross Examination: Foreordination and Free Will. - Dr. Greg Bahnsen
[C] Omnipotence:
i. Omnipotence. -Dr. Joshua Hoffman and Dr. Gary Rosencrantz
ii. Omnipotence. -Dr. Edward Wierenga
iii. Omnipotence. -Geerhardus Vos
iv. The Lord of Power. -John M. Frame
v. Divine Omnipotence. -Dr. Sam Storms
CHAPTER 5: Miracles
i. The Problem of Miracles. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. Miracles: A Test Case . -Dr. Vern Poythress
iii. Counterfeit Miracles. -B. B. Warfield
CHAPTER 6: Faith and Reason
i. Ready to Reason. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. The Problem of Faith. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
iii. Natural Theology and the Rationality of Religious Belief. -Dr. Michael Sudduth
iv. Theism, Atheism, and Rationality. -Dr. Alvin Plantinga
v. How To Believe in God in The 2000s. -John M. Frame
vi. Faith and Reason. -Dr. Michael Polanyi
vii. Faith. -B. B. Warfield
CHAPTER 7: Religious Language
i. The Problem of Religious Language. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. IS HUMAN LANGUAGE ADEQUATE TO TALK ABOUT GOD? A CRITIQUE OF VERIFICATIONISM AND THEOLOGICAL PESSIMISM. -Dr. Michael Sudduth
CHAPTER 8: Christian Theism and Abstracta
i. An Examination of Theistic Conceptual Realism As An Alternative To Theistic Activism. -Greg Welty
ii. Theism and Mathematical Realism. -Dr. John Byl
iii. Logic. -John M. Frame
iv. Reforming Ontology and Logic in the Light of the Trinity: An Application of Van Til's Idea of Analogy . -Dr. Vern Poythress
v. Creation and Mathematics; Or, What Does God Have To Do With Numbers. -Dr. Vern Poythress
CHAPTER 9: Christianity and Science
i. Why Scientists Must Believe in God: Divine Attributes of Scientific Law. -Dr. Vern Poythress
ii. Is Intelligent Design Science?. -John M. Frame
iii. Scripture and Geologists. -Dr. John Byl
iv. When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible. -Dr. Alvin Plantinga
v. An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. -Dr. Alvin Plantinga
vi. Naturalism Defeated. -Dr. Alvin Plantinga
vii. Revelation, Speculation, and Science. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
viii. Science, Subjectivity, and Scripture. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
CHAPTER 10: Christian Ethics
i. What Is Theonomy?. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
ii. The Authority of God's Law. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
iii. Cross Examination: A Biblical Standard For Civil Law. -Dr. Greg Bahnsen
iv. Penultimate Thoughts on Theonomy. -John M. Frame
v. Some Thoughts on Theonomy. -G.I. Williamson
vi.Christian Ethics: Basic Principles. -John M. Frame
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Violin music please!
John W. Loftus said:
“ Do you respect Dr. Paul Copan? He and I have had the same educational experiences. We both studied under Craig, both graduated from TEDS and both attended Marquette University. He is giving the Dr. James D. Strauss Lecturship at LCS this year, of which I was among the founding students who started those series of lectures, of whom Craig, Moreland and Jaki have been invited to speak.
I don't find you ridiculing him, and the reason is because you agreed with him, that's all. I find you're arguments weak, and your attempts to refute me as laughable. Oh, I'm sorry, that you cannot find what entry to look up in the ABD (which I have on a CD, so there are no pages, but you might try "Cosmology/Cosmogany", and if you don't know which verses of Genesis in Walton's Commentary to look up (Try Genesis 1-2) then I'm sorry for the lack of scholarship you DO NOT exhibit.
This is a sorry piece of argumentation, and I'm sorry for thinking I could have a reasoned discussion with you. I can't. And maybe you're doing this so that I won't respond and allow you to go on your merry ways, unaffected by what I might offer in rebuttal. If that's what you want then you got it.
I refuse to lower myself to your level anymore.”
Hi John.
That was very moving.
But it would be even more effective if you’d repost it with a violin accompaniment in the background. Maybe the intro to “Addio del passato” from La Traviata.
How could I ever forget that John Loftus is A VERY IMPORTANT PERSON!!!!
If you don’t believe it, just ask him!
So you think that just because you and Paul Copan attended the same school, you should be treated with the same deference?
Sorry, but the logic of this escapes me.
Both Bill Lane and Ted Kaczynski were Harvard grads. Does that mean I must be as respectful to the Unabomber as I’d be to my old college prof.?
I don’t wish to hurt your feelings, John, but I happen to think that Jesus Christ is even more important than you are.
Maybe this is why John Loftus an apostate. To be a Christian you must resign all pretensions to self-importance.
Over at the DC, you and your fellow renegades ridicule the Christian faith—not to mention the scorn you all heap on Christian commenters at your site.
Like so many unbelievers, Loftus has no capacity for self-criticism.
Am I the only one to notice that John Loftus talks like a man undergoing a midlife crisis?
He’s always pulling the faded laurels of his abortive career in Christian education out of his keepsake drawer to show everyone he can arm-twist into the attic.
What’s he going to show us next—his high school yearbook?
Who’s he trying to impress, anyway?
A non-Christian will be unimpressed with what he was (a Christian) while a Christian will be unimpressed by what he is (a non-Christian).
Observe the way he weasels out of giving the page reference for Walton. He’s the one who set himself up for this trap, not me.
As to lowering yourself to my level, you’re half-right. I’m a bottom-feeder.
But you’re a bottom-feeder too.
I’m a nobody, and you’re a nobody.
Craig is a somebody.
I’ll never be Bill Craig, and neither will you. You’re just a nobody of a somebody—the student of…
That’s a how a small-timer like Loftus tries to get a piece of the action—by introducing himself at the party as a friend of so-and-so.
Welcome to the bottom of the pond, Loftus.
“ Do you respect Dr. Paul Copan? He and I have had the same educational experiences. We both studied under Craig, both graduated from TEDS and both attended Marquette University. He is giving the Dr. James D. Strauss Lecturship at LCS this year, of which I was among the founding students who started those series of lectures, of whom Craig, Moreland and Jaki have been invited to speak.
I don't find you ridiculing him, and the reason is because you agreed with him, that's all. I find you're arguments weak, and your attempts to refute me as laughable. Oh, I'm sorry, that you cannot find what entry to look up in the ABD (which I have on a CD, so there are no pages, but you might try "Cosmology/Cosmogany", and if you don't know which verses of Genesis in Walton's Commentary to look up (Try Genesis 1-2) then I'm sorry for the lack of scholarship you DO NOT exhibit.
This is a sorry piece of argumentation, and I'm sorry for thinking I could have a reasoned discussion with you. I can't. And maybe you're doing this so that I won't respond and allow you to go on your merry ways, unaffected by what I might offer in rebuttal. If that's what you want then you got it.
I refuse to lower myself to your level anymore.”
Hi John.
That was very moving.
But it would be even more effective if you’d repost it with a violin accompaniment in the background. Maybe the intro to “Addio del passato” from La Traviata.
How could I ever forget that John Loftus is A VERY IMPORTANT PERSON!!!!
If you don’t believe it, just ask him!
So you think that just because you and Paul Copan attended the same school, you should be treated with the same deference?
Sorry, but the logic of this escapes me.
Both Bill Lane and Ted Kaczynski were Harvard grads. Does that mean I must be as respectful to the Unabomber as I’d be to my old college prof.?
I don’t wish to hurt your feelings, John, but I happen to think that Jesus Christ is even more important than you are.
Maybe this is why John Loftus an apostate. To be a Christian you must resign all pretensions to self-importance.
Over at the DC, you and your fellow renegades ridicule the Christian faith—not to mention the scorn you all heap on Christian commenters at your site.
Like so many unbelievers, Loftus has no capacity for self-criticism.
Am I the only one to notice that John Loftus talks like a man undergoing a midlife crisis?
He’s always pulling the faded laurels of his abortive career in Christian education out of his keepsake drawer to show everyone he can arm-twist into the attic.
What’s he going to show us next—his high school yearbook?
Who’s he trying to impress, anyway?
A non-Christian will be unimpressed with what he was (a Christian) while a Christian will be unimpressed by what he is (a non-Christian).
Observe the way he weasels out of giving the page reference for Walton. He’s the one who set himself up for this trap, not me.
As to lowering yourself to my level, you’re half-right. I’m a bottom-feeder.
But you’re a bottom-feeder too.
I’m a nobody, and you’re a nobody.
Craig is a somebody.
I’ll never be Bill Craig, and neither will you. You’re just a nobody of a somebody—the student of…
That’s a how a small-timer like Loftus tries to get a piece of the action—by introducing himself at the party as a friend of so-and-so.
Welcome to the bottom of the pond, Loftus.
Coaching the faithful
As we all know, Bible-believing Christians are Appalachian fundies who can’t think for themselves, but do whatever the preacher man a-tells them.
This stands in stark contrast to the enlightened community of Darwinians.
Or does it…
Apparently, Mary Lou Mendum believes that the Darwinian faithful need a lot of coaching on how to talk proper and respectable and project the right image in p-oh-lite society.
I especially liked #7 in her cheat sheet for the evolutionary lumpen.
__________________________________________________________________
National Center for Science Education
Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools
10 Tips for Writing Letters to the Editor
by Mary Lou Mendum
7. If you have credentials, mention them. Few creationists writing letters to local newspapers have any scientific training. If you have earned a degree or done research in a relevant scientific field, you are automatically more credible than a person who has not. If you are affiliated with a university, use your departmental address. Most newspapers will print such information under your name, and that is far more impressive to readers than the usual home town.
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/8069_10_tips_for_writing_letters_to_3_19_2001.asp
This stands in stark contrast to the enlightened community of Darwinians.
Or does it…
Apparently, Mary Lou Mendum believes that the Darwinian faithful need a lot of coaching on how to talk proper and respectable and project the right image in p-oh-lite society.
I especially liked #7 in her cheat sheet for the evolutionary lumpen.
__________________________________________________________________
National Center for Science Education
Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools
10 Tips for Writing Letters to the Editor
by Mary Lou Mendum
7. If you have credentials, mention them. Few creationists writing letters to local newspapers have any scientific training. If you have earned a degree or done research in a relevant scientific field, you are automatically more credible than a person who has not. If you are affiliated with a university, use your departmental address. Most newspapers will print such information under your name, and that is far more impressive to readers than the usual home town.
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/8069_10_tips_for_writing_letters_to_3_19_2001.asp
"Shoddy science!"
According to Daniel Morgan:
“Steve Hays and others would much more readily accept the shoddy science of the ICR and AiG than that by the global community.”
I see that Danny’s ADS is acting up again. He really needs to have that professionally treated.
i) As I’ve explained to him on more than one occasion, I’m a scientific antirealist. But since Danny is illiterate concerning the realist/antirealist debate in science, this passes right over his head.
ii) However, to address him on his own turf—is everyone associated with ICR or AiG guilty of shoddy science? I believe that Kurt Wise hobnobs with AiG.
As I recall, Dr. Wise received a B.A (with Honors) in geology from the University of Chicago, followed by an MA. in geology from Harvard, followed by a Ph.D. in Invertebrate Paleontology from Harvard, under the supervision of the late Stephen Jay Gould.
How does Danny’s resume stack up when compared with Wise?
As for the science of the “global community,”
a) A great man well-credential members of the scientific community have expressed their misgivings about naturalistic evolution:
www.dissentfromdarwin.org
b) When, moreover, you consider the persecution directed at anyone who fails to tow the party line, one can only wonder how many anti-evolutionary scientists simply keep their mouths shut for fear of professional reprisal.
Case in point: http://www.rsternberg.net/
c) I’m also reminded of something Michael Crichton said in the course of his recent speech at Caltech:
***QUOTE***
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compellng evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy…the list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html
***END-QUOTE***
“Interestingly, Steve told me that he doesn't think the sun was created on day 4, which is in direct contradiction to a literal reading and to every creationist”
i) Let’s see. Maybe that’s because I don’t get my exegesis from ICR or AiG after all. Ya think?
ii) Literality has never been my guiding star. I follow the grammatico-historical method.
“But, this does help Steve out in the difficulty of believing that the ancient peoples really meant that the sun was created after plants, (think, -180C, or so) and the possibility of a diurnal cycle (morning and evening).”
i) Another fit of Morgan’s ADS. As I've already explained to him, more than once, even on the traditional reading, a functional equivalent for the sun is already in place on day one.
ii) If I wanted to help myself out of difficulties, I take the path of least resistance, a la theistic evolution or some other compromise.
“Steve Hays and others would much more readily accept the shoddy science of the ICR and AiG than that by the global community.”
I see that Danny’s ADS is acting up again. He really needs to have that professionally treated.
i) As I’ve explained to him on more than one occasion, I’m a scientific antirealist. But since Danny is illiterate concerning the realist/antirealist debate in science, this passes right over his head.
ii) However, to address him on his own turf—is everyone associated with ICR or AiG guilty of shoddy science? I believe that Kurt Wise hobnobs with AiG.
As I recall, Dr. Wise received a B.A (with Honors) in geology from the University of Chicago, followed by an MA. in geology from Harvard, followed by a Ph.D. in Invertebrate Paleontology from Harvard, under the supervision of the late Stephen Jay Gould.
How does Danny’s resume stack up when compared with Wise?
As for the science of the “global community,”
a) A great man well-credential members of the scientific community have expressed their misgivings about naturalistic evolution:
www.dissentfromdarwin.org
b) When, moreover, you consider the persecution directed at anyone who fails to tow the party line, one can only wonder how many anti-evolutionary scientists simply keep their mouths shut for fear of professional reprisal.
Case in point: http://www.rsternberg.net/
c) I’m also reminded of something Michael Crichton said in the course of his recent speech at Caltech:
***QUOTE***
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compellng evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy…the list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html
***END-QUOTE***
“Interestingly, Steve told me that he doesn't think the sun was created on day 4, which is in direct contradiction to a literal reading and to every creationist”
i) Let’s see. Maybe that’s because I don’t get my exegesis from ICR or AiG after all. Ya think?
ii) Literality has never been my guiding star. I follow the grammatico-historical method.
“But, this does help Steve out in the difficulty of believing that the ancient peoples really meant that the sun was created after plants, (think, -180C, or so) and the possibility of a diurnal cycle (morning and evening).”
i) Another fit of Morgan’s ADS. As I've already explained to him, more than once, even on the traditional reading, a functional equivalent for the sun is already in place on day one.
ii) If I wanted to help myself out of difficulties, I take the path of least resistance, a la theistic evolution or some other compromise.
Self-fulfilling scepticism
One of the primary sources of infidelity is ignorance. And what’s the source of this ignorance?
Well, one major source of liberal ignorance is the fact that books are expensive. Unless you live within easy commuting distance of a major Evangelical research facility, you have to buy your own books.
Now, why would an unbeliever sink thousands of dollars into commentaries, introductions, reference works, journals, lexicons, and so on and so forth, if he already thinks that the Bible is bunk and Christianity is myth?
Short answer: he doesn’t.
In addition, most scholarly works are not what you’d call page-turners. You have to have a sense of duty to plow through this material.
An unbeliever has no such incentive.
And to the extent that he does do any investing, he’s only buys liberal literature. He’ll only read one side of the argument—the side he already agrees with.
The rule of thumb is that even though conservatives read liberals, liberals don’t read conservatives.
There are exceptions, but that’s the norm.
So we end up with a self-fulfilling form of scepticism. He’s a sceptic because he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t know because he’s a sceptic.
We run across this all the time at Triablogue. Apostates and other unbelievers who raise old objections as though they were new objections. Raising them as if these had never been answered before.
They are only new to them because they don’t know any better, and they don’t know any better because they have no motive to buy Evangelical commentaries, reference works, and so on in order to acquaint themselves with the answers.
So it’s a vicious cycle of unbelief. Unbelief feeds prejudice while prejudice feeds unbelief—like using one credit card to pay off another.
Well, one major source of liberal ignorance is the fact that books are expensive. Unless you live within easy commuting distance of a major Evangelical research facility, you have to buy your own books.
Now, why would an unbeliever sink thousands of dollars into commentaries, introductions, reference works, journals, lexicons, and so on and so forth, if he already thinks that the Bible is bunk and Christianity is myth?
Short answer: he doesn’t.
In addition, most scholarly works are not what you’d call page-turners. You have to have a sense of duty to plow through this material.
An unbeliever has no such incentive.
And to the extent that he does do any investing, he’s only buys liberal literature. He’ll only read one side of the argument—the side he already agrees with.
The rule of thumb is that even though conservatives read liberals, liberals don’t read conservatives.
There are exceptions, but that’s the norm.
So we end up with a self-fulfilling form of scepticism. He’s a sceptic because he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t know because he’s a sceptic.
We run across this all the time at Triablogue. Apostates and other unbelievers who raise old objections as though they were new objections. Raising them as if these had never been answered before.
They are only new to them because they don’t know any better, and they don’t know any better because they have no motive to buy Evangelical commentaries, reference works, and so on in order to acquaint themselves with the answers.
So it’s a vicious cycle of unbelief. Unbelief feeds prejudice while prejudice feeds unbelief—like using one credit card to pay off another.
The firmament
John W. Loftus said:
“ Did you guys even bother to read the links I offered here? You couldn't possibly have read them. Keep spouting off if you want to, but go to those links and read. “
Okay, if we go to the links, what do we find?
i) Regarding Babinski, we do, indeed, discovery something quite revealing.
In his original post, Loftus said the following:
“For an Evangelical scholar who agrees that what the ancients believed about the days of creation and the shape of the cosmos was indeed based on pre-scientific modes of thought, see Genesis by Dr. John H. Walton (NIV Application Commentary, 2002). [See also the Anchor Bible Dictionary entry “Cosmogony, Cosmology”].
Do you notice anything missing from these citations? That’s right—pagination.
If Loftus had actually read Walton’s commentary, and if he was referring the reader to Walton’s commentary, wouldn’t it make sense to give the reader the page number so he will know where to look?
Now, in going to Babinski’s article, lo and behold what we find:
“Seely's research and conclusions were also cited favorably in the The NIV Application Commentary on Genesis (2002) by John Walton, a professor at Wheaton University (Billy Graham's alma mater).”
Hmm. Could it be that Loftus lifted this reference straight from Babinski?
Apparently, Loftus never read Walton’s commentary. Thus, by his own criterion, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
John, when you issue a challenge, be very careful what you ask for since somebody may actually call your bluff.
BTW, notice the absence of pagination in his reference to the ABD article.
ii) For his own part, Seely’s a well-known quantity. For an online critique, cf.
http://www.reformed-theology.org/ice/newslet/bc/bc.98.04.htm
Then there’s the article by Hyers. It’s just a rehash of the usual chestnuts: the Documentary Hypothesis, parallelomania (e.g. the Enuma Elish), the alleged discrepancy between Gen 1 and Gen 2, the Sabbatarian background of Gen 1, as well as an attack on Henry Morris.
This is only convincing if you subscribe to his examples and authorities (e.g. Freud, Gunkel).
I don’t believe in the Documentary Hypothesis. I regard the putative parallels between Gen 1 and the Enuma Elish as labored and specious.
As to the alleged discrepancies between Gen 1 and Gen 2, it’s the difference between a global creation account (Gen 1) and a local creation account with respect to the Garden of Eden. No real conflict.
Everyone knows about the Sabbatarian allusions in Gen 1-2. That doesn’t prove the account was modeled on the Sabbath. Rather, the Sabbath was modeled on the creation account.
All these links also concentrate a fair amount of their fire on Henry Morris. How is that relevant to my position—or Jason’s?
I don’t go to Morris for my exegesis. Jason doesn’t either.
Jason is noncommittal on the YEC/OEC debate, while I’m a scientific antirealist.
I’d add that Morris represents an older generation of YEC. If you want to target YEC, you need to go after the next generation, represented by the likes of Kurt Wise, viz. Faith, Form, & Time; Something from Nothing: Understanding What You Believe About Creation and Why; Understanding the Pattern of Life: Origins and Organization of the Species.
BTW, I’ve already read the anticreationist literature referenced in the article, viz. Eldredge, Futuyma, Godfrey, Kitcher, Ruse, D. Young.
Greenspahn is just more of the same.
As to the “firmament,” there’s more than one school of thought:
i) There are commentators like Waltke (62) and Sailhammer (28-29) who regard the usage in Gen 1:6 as synonymous with the atmosphere.
ii) Hamilton (1:22) takes the meaning of the noun from the verb, which, for him, simply means to spread out or stretch out.
iii) Ross (109) draws attention to a variety of celestial images: “a tent curtain” (Ps 104:2), “a veil” (Isa 40:22), “clear pavement like sapphire (Exod 24:10), and “molten glass” (Job 37:18).
iv) Even if you think that a solid dome is depicted, that doesn’t settle the issue, for the question remains whether the metallic imagery is literal or figurative.
Currid (1:65) opts for figurative metallic imagery, while Wenham (1:19-20) leaves that exegetical option open as well.
v) We also have to ask about the source of the imagery. Is it based on generic ANE cosmology?
a) Was there a generic ANE cosmology? Isn’t the liberal creating a synthetic cosmology by merging Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and other ANE sources to “create” a cosmology that never existed in any particular time and place?
b) What about the role of dead metaphors? The mere presence of mythopoetic imagery would not, of itself, implicate a mythological worldview.
vi) Or is the source of the imagery more specific to the religious life of Israel?
As I already explained, it has its actual background in the cultic symbolism of the temple, the tabernacle, and the garden as a prototypal temple, which is, in turn, an ectype of heaven as the archetypal temple.
This is worked out in great detail by Meredith Kline. It’s also explored by a number of other scholars, viz. Beale, Currid, Levenson, and Poythress.
In fact, one of its advocates just so happens to be—guess who?— John Walton, in the aforesaid commentary, p148!
BTW, Walton’s commentary was published in 2001, not 2002—something that Loftus would know if he hadn’t cribbed the erroneous reference from Babinski.
Moving along:
“Also, the best single book that shows what I'm talking about is by Howard J. Van Till, The Fourth Day (Eerdmans, 1986). This is not an atheist publication, but a Christian one, so surely an informed Christian should not be afraid of buying it or in reading it. Do so, then let me know. Otherwise, you do not know what you're talking about.”
i) I read this when it came out 20 years ago.
ii) Even if I hadn’t ever read it, Van Till is a professor of physics, not OT or ANE literature. So how would he be an authority on Hebrew cosmology?
iii) Van Till is one of the men responsible for liberalizing Calvin College and the CRC. He’s a functional Deist.
iv) Van Till has not gone unchallenged. See:
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga1.html
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga2.html
As well as:
Three Views On Creation and Evolution, J. Moreland & J. Reynolds, eds. (Zondervan 1999), 219-39.
All that Loftus has accomplished is to draw attention to his dated and slipshod scholarship.
Moving along:
“Let's see then, Joshua never asked God to ‘stop’ the sun in it's path in the sky, and the ‘floodgates’ of heaven didn't open up for the rain to flood the earth. Sheeesh.”
Triablogue already did Joshua’s Long Day. Remember?
Keep up the good work, John. With foes like you, who needs friends?
“ Did you guys even bother to read the links I offered here? You couldn't possibly have read them. Keep spouting off if you want to, but go to those links and read. “
Okay, if we go to the links, what do we find?
i) Regarding Babinski, we do, indeed, discovery something quite revealing.
In his original post, Loftus said the following:
“For an Evangelical scholar who agrees that what the ancients believed about the days of creation and the shape of the cosmos was indeed based on pre-scientific modes of thought, see Genesis by Dr. John H. Walton (NIV Application Commentary, 2002). [See also the Anchor Bible Dictionary entry “Cosmogony, Cosmology”].
Do you notice anything missing from these citations? That’s right—pagination.
If Loftus had actually read Walton’s commentary, and if he was referring the reader to Walton’s commentary, wouldn’t it make sense to give the reader the page number so he will know where to look?
Now, in going to Babinski’s article, lo and behold what we find:
“Seely's research and conclusions were also cited favorably in the The NIV Application Commentary on Genesis (2002) by John Walton, a professor at Wheaton University (Billy Graham's alma mater).”
Hmm. Could it be that Loftus lifted this reference straight from Babinski?
Apparently, Loftus never read Walton’s commentary. Thus, by his own criterion, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
John, when you issue a challenge, be very careful what you ask for since somebody may actually call your bluff.
BTW, notice the absence of pagination in his reference to the ABD article.
ii) For his own part, Seely’s a well-known quantity. For an online critique, cf.
http://www.reformed-theology.org/ice/newslet/bc/bc.98.04.htm
Then there’s the article by Hyers. It’s just a rehash of the usual chestnuts: the Documentary Hypothesis, parallelomania (e.g. the Enuma Elish), the alleged discrepancy between Gen 1 and Gen 2, the Sabbatarian background of Gen 1, as well as an attack on Henry Morris.
This is only convincing if you subscribe to his examples and authorities (e.g. Freud, Gunkel).
I don’t believe in the Documentary Hypothesis. I regard the putative parallels between Gen 1 and the Enuma Elish as labored and specious.
As to the alleged discrepancies between Gen 1 and Gen 2, it’s the difference between a global creation account (Gen 1) and a local creation account with respect to the Garden of Eden. No real conflict.
Everyone knows about the Sabbatarian allusions in Gen 1-2. That doesn’t prove the account was modeled on the Sabbath. Rather, the Sabbath was modeled on the creation account.
All these links also concentrate a fair amount of their fire on Henry Morris. How is that relevant to my position—or Jason’s?
I don’t go to Morris for my exegesis. Jason doesn’t either.
Jason is noncommittal on the YEC/OEC debate, while I’m a scientific antirealist.
I’d add that Morris represents an older generation of YEC. If you want to target YEC, you need to go after the next generation, represented by the likes of Kurt Wise, viz. Faith, Form, & Time; Something from Nothing: Understanding What You Believe About Creation and Why; Understanding the Pattern of Life: Origins and Organization of the Species.
BTW, I’ve already read the anticreationist literature referenced in the article, viz. Eldredge, Futuyma, Godfrey, Kitcher, Ruse, D. Young.
Greenspahn is just more of the same.
As to the “firmament,” there’s more than one school of thought:
i) There are commentators like Waltke (62) and Sailhammer (28-29) who regard the usage in Gen 1:6 as synonymous with the atmosphere.
ii) Hamilton (1:22) takes the meaning of the noun from the verb, which, for him, simply means to spread out or stretch out.
iii) Ross (109) draws attention to a variety of celestial images: “a tent curtain” (Ps 104:2), “a veil” (Isa 40:22), “clear pavement like sapphire (Exod 24:10), and “molten glass” (Job 37:18).
iv) Even if you think that a solid dome is depicted, that doesn’t settle the issue, for the question remains whether the metallic imagery is literal or figurative.
Currid (1:65) opts for figurative metallic imagery, while Wenham (1:19-20) leaves that exegetical option open as well.
v) We also have to ask about the source of the imagery. Is it based on generic ANE cosmology?
a) Was there a generic ANE cosmology? Isn’t the liberal creating a synthetic cosmology by merging Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and other ANE sources to “create” a cosmology that never existed in any particular time and place?
b) What about the role of dead metaphors? The mere presence of mythopoetic imagery would not, of itself, implicate a mythological worldview.
vi) Or is the source of the imagery more specific to the religious life of Israel?
As I already explained, it has its actual background in the cultic symbolism of the temple, the tabernacle, and the garden as a prototypal temple, which is, in turn, an ectype of heaven as the archetypal temple.
This is worked out in great detail by Meredith Kline. It’s also explored by a number of other scholars, viz. Beale, Currid, Levenson, and Poythress.
In fact, one of its advocates just so happens to be—guess who?— John Walton, in the aforesaid commentary, p148!
BTW, Walton’s commentary was published in 2001, not 2002—something that Loftus would know if he hadn’t cribbed the erroneous reference from Babinski.
Moving along:
“Also, the best single book that shows what I'm talking about is by Howard J. Van Till, The Fourth Day (Eerdmans, 1986). This is not an atheist publication, but a Christian one, so surely an informed Christian should not be afraid of buying it or in reading it. Do so, then let me know. Otherwise, you do not know what you're talking about.”
i) I read this when it came out 20 years ago.
ii) Even if I hadn’t ever read it, Van Till is a professor of physics, not OT or ANE literature. So how would he be an authority on Hebrew cosmology?
iii) Van Till is one of the men responsible for liberalizing Calvin College and the CRC. He’s a functional Deist.
iv) Van Till has not gone unchallenged. See:
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga1.html
http://www.asa3.org/asa/dialogues/Faith-reason/CRS9-91Plantinga2.html
As well as:
Three Views On Creation and Evolution, J. Moreland & J. Reynolds, eds. (Zondervan 1999), 219-39.
All that Loftus has accomplished is to draw attention to his dated and slipshod scholarship.
Moving along:
“Let's see then, Joshua never asked God to ‘stop’ the sun in it's path in the sky, and the ‘floodgates’ of heaven didn't open up for the rain to flood the earth. Sheeesh.”
Triablogue already did Joshua’s Long Day. Remember?
Keep up the good work, John. With foes like you, who needs friends?
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Hallquist easily refuted
***QUOTE***
Triablogue easily refuted
Triablogue has responded to my previous critique of them. (I won't link, because it seems that linking to opponents is contrary to Triablogue policy.) I'm replying immediately, becuase it's so easy to refute. They are admirably clear on micro/macro-evolution:
“After Darwin, the first phenomenon (changes within an existing species or gene pool) was named "microevolution." There is abundant evidence that changes can occur within existing species, both domestic and wild, so microevolution is uncontroversial.
The second phenomenon (large-scale changes over geological time) was named "macroevolution," and Darwin's theory that the processes of the former can account for the latter was controversial right from the start. Many biologists during and after Darwin's lifetime have questioned whether the natural counterpart of domestic breeding could do what domestic breeding has never done—namely, produce new species, organs, and body plans.”
As noted in my original post, new species can be produced. Ergo, macroevolution happens.
Then they complain I act as if the universe has been designed for man. Nope. I just think that if, as far as we can tell, a scientific procedure works, then we should use it. That's the only way to deal with the empirical world.
http://uncrediblehallq.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
This “refutation” falls flat in several respects:
i) Hallquist acts as if speciation were an indisputable phenomenon. Linking to a popularizer hardly cinches the argument.
ii) Even if it were an established fact, there is more at issue than speciation. There is also the question of evidence, or lack thereof, for the macroevolutionary development of new organs and body plans. Hallquist is glossing over major transitions.
iii) Again, even if we were to observe speciation in nature, that is not a defeater for Gen 1 given the semantic range of a natural “kind” in Pentateuchal usage.
iv) Likewise, the question at issue is not whether the scientific method works, but its scope. Many things work. That doesn’t make them relevant to the question at hand.
v) Hallquist seems to be assuming that the empirical world is all there is. If so, he will need to account for consciousness and abstract objects consistent with his materialism.
Triablogue easily refuted
Triablogue has responded to my previous critique of them. (I won't link, because it seems that linking to opponents is contrary to Triablogue policy.) I'm replying immediately, becuase it's so easy to refute. They are admirably clear on micro/macro-evolution:
“After Darwin, the first phenomenon (changes within an existing species or gene pool) was named "microevolution." There is abundant evidence that changes can occur within existing species, both domestic and wild, so microevolution is uncontroversial.
The second phenomenon (large-scale changes over geological time) was named "macroevolution," and Darwin's theory that the processes of the former can account for the latter was controversial right from the start. Many biologists during and after Darwin's lifetime have questioned whether the natural counterpart of domestic breeding could do what domestic breeding has never done—namely, produce new species, organs, and body plans.”
As noted in my original post, new species can be produced. Ergo, macroevolution happens.
Then they complain I act as if the universe has been designed for man. Nope. I just think that if, as far as we can tell, a scientific procedure works, then we should use it. That's the only way to deal with the empirical world.
http://uncrediblehallq.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
This “refutation” falls flat in several respects:
i) Hallquist acts as if speciation were an indisputable phenomenon. Linking to a popularizer hardly cinches the argument.
ii) Even if it were an established fact, there is more at issue than speciation. There is also the question of evidence, or lack thereof, for the macroevolutionary development of new organs and body plans. Hallquist is glossing over major transitions.
iii) Again, even if we were to observe speciation in nature, that is not a defeater for Gen 1 given the semantic range of a natural “kind” in Pentateuchal usage.
iv) Likewise, the question at issue is not whether the scientific method works, but its scope. Many things work. That doesn’t make them relevant to the question at hand.
v) Hallquist seems to be assuming that the empirical world is all there is. If so, he will need to account for consciousness and abstract objects consistent with his materialism.
Cultic imagery
As is his wont in rummaging through the trash can for crumpled criticisms the Christian faith, Loftus has posted a diagram of the three-decker universe.
There are a couple of elementary problems with his analysis:
1.The picture of the three-decker universe is cobbled together by gleaning isolated verses all over the OT without respect to genre, and then fusing them as if they were ever meant to be Gerry rigged in such a wooden and arbitrary fashion.
2. It disregards the use of cultic symbolism, wherein the world is figuratively depicted as a cosmic temple or tabernacle.
As James Jordan points out:
***QUOTE***
We have to realize that the Bible pictures the earth as a house, as in Job 38:4-6. Moreover, the Bible pictures the earth as an altar, with four corners, in Revelation 7:1; 9:13-21. All of this goes back to the Garden of Eden, which had four rivers flowing out of it to water the whole earth, headed for the "four corners." The word for ‘corner’ in Hebrew is kanaf, which literally means ‘wings.’ The cherubim have four wings (Ezekiel 1). The garment worn by each Hebrew male was to have four wings or corners, so that his garment was analogous to a house or tent that he carried with him at all times (Numbers 15:38; Deuteronomy 22:12; Haggai 2:12).
What this gives us is a series of analogous models: The Garden of Eden is like a house, and they are like an altar, and they are analogous to the human person (who is the temple of the Spirit), etc. For an extended treatment of this subject, see the discussions in my book Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World.
So, when the Bible uses language that indicates that the earth is flat, that it has ends, and that it has corners, we are to understand such language in its Biblical context. And that Biblical context is the house-model of the world, seen in the glory cloud, the Garden of Eden, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the holy land, the entire earth, the human body, the clothing of the human body, the cherubim, etc. We are not to try to stretch this language to answer cosmological questions that it was not intended to address.
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/ob/ob046.htm
***END-QUOTE***
This is also explored in some detail by Meredith Kline in his Kingdom Prologue. Free copies are available online. Cf.
http://www.twoagepress.org/books.htm
There are a couple of elementary problems with his analysis:
1.The picture of the three-decker universe is cobbled together by gleaning isolated verses all over the OT without respect to genre, and then fusing them as if they were ever meant to be Gerry rigged in such a wooden and arbitrary fashion.
2. It disregards the use of cultic symbolism, wherein the world is figuratively depicted as a cosmic temple or tabernacle.
As James Jordan points out:
***QUOTE***
We have to realize that the Bible pictures the earth as a house, as in Job 38:4-6. Moreover, the Bible pictures the earth as an altar, with four corners, in Revelation 7:1; 9:13-21. All of this goes back to the Garden of Eden, which had four rivers flowing out of it to water the whole earth, headed for the "four corners." The word for ‘corner’ in Hebrew is kanaf, which literally means ‘wings.’ The cherubim have four wings (Ezekiel 1). The garment worn by each Hebrew male was to have four wings or corners, so that his garment was analogous to a house or tent that he carried with him at all times (Numbers 15:38; Deuteronomy 22:12; Haggai 2:12).
What this gives us is a series of analogous models: The Garden of Eden is like a house, and they are like an altar, and they are analogous to the human person (who is the temple of the Spirit), etc. For an extended treatment of this subject, see the discussions in my book Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World.
So, when the Bible uses language that indicates that the earth is flat, that it has ends, and that it has corners, we are to understand such language in its Biblical context. And that Biblical context is the house-model of the world, seen in the glory cloud, the Garden of Eden, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the holy land, the entire earth, the human body, the clothing of the human body, the cherubim, etc. We are not to try to stretch this language to answer cosmological questions that it was not intended to address.
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/ob/ob046.htm
***END-QUOTE***
This is also explored in some detail by Meredith Kline in his Kingdom Prologue. Free copies are available online. Cf.
http://www.twoagepress.org/books.htm
Dawson's broken record
Dawson Bethrick continues his valiant efforts to resuscitate his cartoon analogy (“See, I told you so!”). Unfortunately for him, a crash cart has little effect on a cadaver.
There’s nothing new in his latest post. Bethrick likes to repeat himself. I do not.
All he’s done this time around, which is all he ever does, is—on the one hand—to hustle his trademark equivocations while—on the other hand—ignoring my nuanced position.
So it’s another strawman argument. He reiterates the same equivocations regarding his own position while disregarding the qualifications I’ve built into my own.
Dawson is a man with a bad idea. But because it’s the only idea he has, he’s very proud of his bad idea. It may be a bad idea, but it’s his bad idea, and that makes all the difference.
There’s nothing new in his latest post. Bethrick likes to repeat himself. I do not.
All he’s done this time around, which is all he ever does, is—on the one hand—to hustle his trademark equivocations while—on the other hand—ignoring my nuanced position.
So it’s another strawman argument. He reiterates the same equivocations regarding his own position while disregarding the qualifications I’ve built into my own.
Dawson is a man with a bad idea. But because it’s the only idea he has, he’s very proud of his bad idea. It may be a bad idea, but it’s his bad idea, and that makes all the difference.
Legitimating papal elections
Fred Neissen has written a perceptive post on the insurmountable obstacles in the way of legitimating papal elections:
http://geocities.com/frneissen/blog.html
http://geocities.com/frneissen/blog.html
Did The Resurrection Accounts Develop Over Time?
In the comment section of a thread started by Matthew Green at Debunking Christianity, Ed Babinski writes:
The sort of approach Ed is taking has recently been refuted at length by David Wood. I recommend reading Wood's article. And I'll add the following.
The material Paul cites when discussing the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 predates the gospels. That material, part of which comes from an early, pre-Pauline creed, has more resurrection appearances than any of the gospels (six). It also has Jesus appearing to more people than He appears to in any of the gospels (more than 500 people in 1 Corinthians 15:6). Does 1 Corinthians 15 have less than the gospels in some contexts? Yes. Ed Babinski cites the example of how many words the resurrected Christ spoke. Since 1 Corinthians 15 is part of a letter discussing a creed, it isn't going to have the sort of dialogue we would find in a Greco-Roman biography. But why only consider how many words the resurrected Jesus speaks? If you take other factors into account, such as the number of resurrection appearances and the number of people involved, 1 Corinthians 15 has more than the gospels in some contexts.
Mark's gospel ends with the empty tomb and a reference to upcoming resurrection appearances. We don't know how many words the resurrected Jesus would have spoken if Mark had decided to include resurrection appearances. How can Ed claim to know that a gradual development occurred? And how does Ed know that Matthew was written before Luke? What if Matthew's resurrection material is so brief because he was coming to the end of his scroll, as some scholars believe? Is the difference in word count between Luke and John significant? If so, then if John's gospel is written by an eyewitness, wouldn't we expect its author to have more knowledge of what Jesus spoke than Luke would have had? There are explanations of the data other than Ed's proposed explanation, and he isn't giving us any reason to prefer his.
Why did Mark end his gospel where he did? We don't know. One possibility that's been suggested is that he wanted to keep a lot of emphasis on the cross while not leaving out the resurrection, so he only mentioned a small amount about the resurrection. Another possibility is that he wanted the readers to get the impression that they're in the same position as the women at the tomb. The reader, like the women, has a responsibility to go and tell others about the resurrection. Whatever Mark's reasons for ending his gospel where he did, we know that he had a lot more material he could have included. Mark knew that resurrection appearances followed the empty tomb. He refers to them in Mark 16:7. And the resurrection appearances mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 had been widely known long before Mark's gospel was written. What we have, then, is a situation in which Mark chose not to include information he had. If he chose not to include it, then the fact that it appeared in later documents, but not in Mark's gospel, doesn't prove that some source after Mark fabricated it. Ed is making assumptions that are unproveable and unlikely.
In addition to the example of Mark's deliberately not using some information he had, we know that the other gospel writers did the same. Jesus' brother James was one of the most prominent of the early church leaders, and it was widely known that he had seen the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:7). Yet, none of the gospels include an appearance to James.
Ed tells us that the gospels of Luke and John "take pains to convince them he [the resurrected Jesus] was 'not a spirit.'". Actually, Luke's gospel has only one brief section on Jesus' comments about His not being a spirit. How does that one brief section prove that Luke was "at pains" on the subject? All four gospel authors refer to physical evidence produced by the resurrection (Matthew 28:9, Mark 16:4-6, Luke 24:42-43, John 21:9-13, etc.). They were writing in the context of first century Israel, a context in which there was a physical concept of resurrection. When people are told that a physical resurrection has occurred, a desire for physical evidence will be present all along. It's not something that wouldn't arise until the gospels were written. The concern for physical evidence that we see in the gospels is what we would expect to have occurred if there was a resurrection. Jesus' comment in Luke 24 about His not being a spirit would be a response to the possibility that the disciples were seeing a ghost. It had nothing to do with responding to a belief in spiritual resurrection. Physical resurrection was the mainstream Jewish view, and the Christian belief in resurrection was of a physical nature from the start (see here and here). The gospels' concern for physical evidence is what we would expect to see if they were giving historically reliable accounts. The suggestion that such a concern for physical evidence is evidence of inauthenticity rather than authenticity is absurd.
Ed comments that "Luke doesn't even bother to have the apostles run off to Galilee". The sequence of resurrection appearances mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 would require that a lot of time passed. Peter seems to have been present during at least three of the appearances Paul mentions, so there had to have been time for Peter to repeatedly leave one place and go to another, where other people joined him. Similarly, John refers to significant time passing (John 20:26). Luke mentions that Jesus appeared to people over a period of 40 days (Acts 1:3). A lot could have happened during that much time, and surely a lot did happen. There's far too much time involved and too many people involved for the reasonable reader to conclude anything other than that an author like Luke would be summarizing events, compressing things, and leaving out some information that could have been included. We see such compression, leaving out of details, etc. frequently in both ancient and modern literature, in both Christian and non-Christian sources. See J.P. Holding's examples here and Glenn Miller's discussion here. And it's worth noting that Miller's article gives several examples of proposed harmonizations of the resurrection narratives. It's not a matter of our not being able to harmonize them. Rather, it's a matter of many plausible harmonizations being available, and we don't have enough information to answer every question.
In other comments Ed makes, which I don't quote above, he raises some common objections that have already been answered by Christians (and sometimes by non-Christian scholars) many times and in many places. It would be easy for Ed to find credible answers to his objections in the scholarly literature, as well as online.
In closing, I want to respond to one other comment Ed made. He wrote:
Psychological studies also show that hallucinations and other psychological disorders occur under conditions different from those of the resurrection witnesses. See, for example, here, here, here, and here. And the early Christians didn't just make claims about "invisible holy realms". They made claims about a physical resurrection that involved a physical empty tomb, physical eyewitnesses who were named, etc. And I doubt that skeptics like James, Paul, and Paul's travel companions were desiring to see a risen Jesus.
As far as Ed's speculative appeal to "cognitive dissonance" is concerned, the research has already been done. N.T. Wright, after studying religious movements in Israel around the time of Jesus' death, commented:
"So far as we know, all the followers of these first-century messianic movements were fanatically committed to the cause. They, if anybody, might be expected to suffer from this blessed twentieth century disease called 'cognitive dissonance' when their expectations failed to materialize. But in no case, right across the century before Jesus and the century after him, do we hear of any Jewish group saying that their executed leader had been raised from the dead and he really was the Messiah after all." (cited in Paul Copan and Ronald Tacelli, editors, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000], p. 183)
It seems that the problem here is the cognitive dissonance of Ed Babinski.
So the stories of the Christian miracle of the resurrection originated with partisan believers (and even their stories of the "words" allegedly spoken by the resurrected Jesus kept growing numerically over time). The earliest tale of the empty tomb [Mark] ends with a mere promise of seeing Jesus. The next earliest tale of the empty tomb [Mat.] adds a handful of so-called post-resurrection words, a mere brief early creedal statement easily put into Jesus's mouth, and even adds, "but some doubted."
By the time the later written Luke/Acts and John came about, they had the resurrected Jesus speaking HUNDREDS of words, and in both cases they added stories that made sure the raised Jesus would not be confused with a "spirit" at all, having Jesus in both their late Gospels take pains to convince them he was "not a spirit." (There must have been some doubt somewhere for them to protest to much in the last written Gospels!)
So the story grew in stages. (Luke doesn't even bother to have the apostles run off to Galilee where Mark and Matthew claimed the raised Jesus first went and where the apostles had to go to first see him. Instead, Luke changes the message at the tomb. I invite all to go read how Luke changes the so-called sacrosanct "word of God" as found in Mark and Matthew.)
The sort of approach Ed is taking has recently been refuted at length by David Wood. I recommend reading Wood's article. And I'll add the following.
The material Paul cites when discussing the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 predates the gospels. That material, part of which comes from an early, pre-Pauline creed, has more resurrection appearances than any of the gospels (six). It also has Jesus appearing to more people than He appears to in any of the gospels (more than 500 people in 1 Corinthians 15:6). Does 1 Corinthians 15 have less than the gospels in some contexts? Yes. Ed Babinski cites the example of how many words the resurrected Christ spoke. Since 1 Corinthians 15 is part of a letter discussing a creed, it isn't going to have the sort of dialogue we would find in a Greco-Roman biography. But why only consider how many words the resurrected Jesus speaks? If you take other factors into account, such as the number of resurrection appearances and the number of people involved, 1 Corinthians 15 has more than the gospels in some contexts.
Mark's gospel ends with the empty tomb and a reference to upcoming resurrection appearances. We don't know how many words the resurrected Jesus would have spoken if Mark had decided to include resurrection appearances. How can Ed claim to know that a gradual development occurred? And how does Ed know that Matthew was written before Luke? What if Matthew's resurrection material is so brief because he was coming to the end of his scroll, as some scholars believe? Is the difference in word count between Luke and John significant? If so, then if John's gospel is written by an eyewitness, wouldn't we expect its author to have more knowledge of what Jesus spoke than Luke would have had? There are explanations of the data other than Ed's proposed explanation, and he isn't giving us any reason to prefer his.
Why did Mark end his gospel where he did? We don't know. One possibility that's been suggested is that he wanted to keep a lot of emphasis on the cross while not leaving out the resurrection, so he only mentioned a small amount about the resurrection. Another possibility is that he wanted the readers to get the impression that they're in the same position as the women at the tomb. The reader, like the women, has a responsibility to go and tell others about the resurrection. Whatever Mark's reasons for ending his gospel where he did, we know that he had a lot more material he could have included. Mark knew that resurrection appearances followed the empty tomb. He refers to them in Mark 16:7. And the resurrection appearances mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 had been widely known long before Mark's gospel was written. What we have, then, is a situation in which Mark chose not to include information he had. If he chose not to include it, then the fact that it appeared in later documents, but not in Mark's gospel, doesn't prove that some source after Mark fabricated it. Ed is making assumptions that are unproveable and unlikely.
In addition to the example of Mark's deliberately not using some information he had, we know that the other gospel writers did the same. Jesus' brother James was one of the most prominent of the early church leaders, and it was widely known that he had seen the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:7). Yet, none of the gospels include an appearance to James.
Ed tells us that the gospels of Luke and John "take pains to convince them he [the resurrected Jesus] was 'not a spirit.'". Actually, Luke's gospel has only one brief section on Jesus' comments about His not being a spirit. How does that one brief section prove that Luke was "at pains" on the subject? All four gospel authors refer to physical evidence produced by the resurrection (Matthew 28:9, Mark 16:4-6, Luke 24:42-43, John 21:9-13, etc.). They were writing in the context of first century Israel, a context in which there was a physical concept of resurrection. When people are told that a physical resurrection has occurred, a desire for physical evidence will be present all along. It's not something that wouldn't arise until the gospels were written. The concern for physical evidence that we see in the gospels is what we would expect to have occurred if there was a resurrection. Jesus' comment in Luke 24 about His not being a spirit would be a response to the possibility that the disciples were seeing a ghost. It had nothing to do with responding to a belief in spiritual resurrection. Physical resurrection was the mainstream Jewish view, and the Christian belief in resurrection was of a physical nature from the start (see here and here). The gospels' concern for physical evidence is what we would expect to see if they were giving historically reliable accounts. The suggestion that such a concern for physical evidence is evidence of inauthenticity rather than authenticity is absurd.
Ed comments that "Luke doesn't even bother to have the apostles run off to Galilee". The sequence of resurrection appearances mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 would require that a lot of time passed. Peter seems to have been present during at least three of the appearances Paul mentions, so there had to have been time for Peter to repeatedly leave one place and go to another, where other people joined him. Similarly, John refers to significant time passing (John 20:26). Luke mentions that Jesus appeared to people over a period of 40 days (Acts 1:3). A lot could have happened during that much time, and surely a lot did happen. There's far too much time involved and too many people involved for the reasonable reader to conclude anything other than that an author like Luke would be summarizing events, compressing things, and leaving out some information that could have been included. We see such compression, leaving out of details, etc. frequently in both ancient and modern literature, in both Christian and non-Christian sources. See J.P. Holding's examples here and Glenn Miller's discussion here. And it's worth noting that Miller's article gives several examples of proposed harmonizations of the resurrection narratives. It's not a matter of our not being able to harmonize them. Rather, it's a matter of many plausible harmonizations being available, and we don't have enough information to answer every question.
In other comments Ed makes, which I don't quote above, he raises some common objections that have already been answered by Christians (and sometimes by non-Christian scholars) many times and in many places. It would be easy for Ed to find credible answers to his objections in the scholarly literature, as well as online.
In closing, I want to respond to one other comment Ed made. He wrote:
Psychological studies of people in other religions that wound up at dead ends prove that in such cases some give up, but others take their beliefs to a new level of insistance and persistance, raising the stakes in invisible holy realms, and in spite of all earthly disappointments. That appears to be what the apostles did to solve their problem of cognitive dissonance.
Psychological studies also show that hallucinations and other psychological disorders occur under conditions different from those of the resurrection witnesses. See, for example, here, here, here, and here. And the early Christians didn't just make claims about "invisible holy realms". They made claims about a physical resurrection that involved a physical empty tomb, physical eyewitnesses who were named, etc. And I doubt that skeptics like James, Paul, and Paul's travel companions were desiring to see a risen Jesus.
As far as Ed's speculative appeal to "cognitive dissonance" is concerned, the research has already been done. N.T. Wright, after studying religious movements in Israel around the time of Jesus' death, commented:
"So far as we know, all the followers of these first-century messianic movements were fanatically committed to the cause. They, if anybody, might be expected to suffer from this blessed twentieth century disease called 'cognitive dissonance' when their expectations failed to materialize. But in no case, right across the century before Jesus and the century after him, do we hear of any Jewish group saying that their executed leader had been raised from the dead and he really was the Messiah after all." (cited in Paul Copan and Ronald Tacelli, editors, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000], p. 183)
It seems that the problem here is the cognitive dissonance of Ed Babinski.
Slave of one
***QUOTE***
slaveofone said...
I take it as given that if a man can do no spiritual good, he can do no other good either. The reason for that is simple: because good is defined by whether a person's being is aligned with Yahweh's or not. Yahweh is the only measurement of good because only a universal can define a particular and only Yahweh is a universal.
A person who saves another person from drowning cannot be doing good unless he/she is spiritually conformed to Yahweh. If someone is depraved beyond all hope spiritually, he/she can do nothing good in the human sphere either. To say otherwise is to create a universal out of a particular that is not Yahweh--and that is idolatry.
As for "regeneration", I find the Calvinistic concept of it to be powerless pragmatically and empirically and nonsensical rationally according to the ancient Jewish world-view. Therefore I have no reason to believe any Calvinist is "regenerated". And even if I did, I have no way to know whether their total depravity has been regenerated at any point in time since that regeneration is spiritual, not physical. Thus, all I know about someone who says they're Calvinist is that they believe there is nothing good they can say or do either spiritually or physically and as a consequence their position is self-defeating.
***END-QUOTE***
To argue that a position is “self-defeating,” you must mount an internal critique. You try to show that the position in question is inconsistent on its own grounds. That, indeed, is the point of slaveofone’s syllogism.
Now, however, he is switching to an external reference point. He is at liberty to shift grounds, but in so doing he needs to withdraw his original objection. He is no longer mounting an internal critique, but an external critique.
And why would he shift grounds unless the original argument was flawed? So he needs to retract his original allegation.
We are simply taking him at his word. Does he not want to be taken at his word? Should everyone assume that he’s not a serious thinker with serious ideas?
If he is going to argue that Calvinism is self-defeating, then he needs to use Reformed usage according to Reformed usage.
If he’s going to empty Reformed usage of Reformed content and pour in his own definitions, then whatever else his argument may prove, it can never prove that Calvinism is self-defeating.
I made this point. Gene made this point. And Peter Nelson made this point.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
I haven't defined my view (as you define it "scripturally") because I operate according to a Jewish world-view, not a Pagan Greek system like "proof-texting".
***END-QUOTE***
i) Is prooftexting a Greco-pagan system? Jesus and the Apostles often cite Scripture to prove a point. Are they complicit in a Greco-pagan system?
Perhaps Slaveonone can give us some examples of heathen Greeks who quote the Bible to prove a point.
ii) I’d add that there’s more to the Reformed doctrine of depravity than a set of prooftexts. We have the exegesis to back it up.
***QUOTE***
Of course I've laid my definition... why wouldn't I say what I believe? Why would I back up definitions I don't believe? It's no strawman, it's laying bare the facts as I see them--you can't expect me to lay bare the facts that I don't see.
***END-QUOTE***
It’s a strawman argument if you say the Reformed doctrine of total depravity is self-defeating, even casting that claim in syllogistic form, only to redefine the key terms by evacuating Reformed usage of Reformed meaning and plugging in whatever definition you please.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
My blog isn't an apologetic blog--I'm not here to argue and debate others or bring long lists of scriptural references which *prove* my point [shakes head in sadness I'm here to state my opinions and views and thoughts and anyone is welcome to see them.
***END-QUOTE***
Is honesty part of his Jewish worldview? Or is honestly part of a Greco-pagan system?
Is he here to state demonstrably false opinions? To misrepresent the position he’s opposing.
Does he think he’s immune to correction? Is that part of his Jewish worldview?
It's certainly no part of the OT worldview or the NT worldview.
slaveofone said...
I take it as given that if a man can do no spiritual good, he can do no other good either. The reason for that is simple: because good is defined by whether a person's being is aligned with Yahweh's or not. Yahweh is the only measurement of good because only a universal can define a particular and only Yahweh is a universal.
A person who saves another person from drowning cannot be doing good unless he/she is spiritually conformed to Yahweh. If someone is depraved beyond all hope spiritually, he/she can do nothing good in the human sphere either. To say otherwise is to create a universal out of a particular that is not Yahweh--and that is idolatry.
As for "regeneration", I find the Calvinistic concept of it to be powerless pragmatically and empirically and nonsensical rationally according to the ancient Jewish world-view. Therefore I have no reason to believe any Calvinist is "regenerated". And even if I did, I have no way to know whether their total depravity has been regenerated at any point in time since that regeneration is spiritual, not physical. Thus, all I know about someone who says they're Calvinist is that they believe there is nothing good they can say or do either spiritually or physically and as a consequence their position is self-defeating.
***END-QUOTE***
To argue that a position is “self-defeating,” you must mount an internal critique. You try to show that the position in question is inconsistent on its own grounds. That, indeed, is the point of slaveofone’s syllogism.
Now, however, he is switching to an external reference point. He is at liberty to shift grounds, but in so doing he needs to withdraw his original objection. He is no longer mounting an internal critique, but an external critique.
And why would he shift grounds unless the original argument was flawed? So he needs to retract his original allegation.
We are simply taking him at his word. Does he not want to be taken at his word? Should everyone assume that he’s not a serious thinker with serious ideas?
If he is going to argue that Calvinism is self-defeating, then he needs to use Reformed usage according to Reformed usage.
If he’s going to empty Reformed usage of Reformed content and pour in his own definitions, then whatever else his argument may prove, it can never prove that Calvinism is self-defeating.
I made this point. Gene made this point. And Peter Nelson made this point.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
I haven't defined my view (as you define it "scripturally") because I operate according to a Jewish world-view, not a Pagan Greek system like "proof-texting".
***END-QUOTE***
i) Is prooftexting a Greco-pagan system? Jesus and the Apostles often cite Scripture to prove a point. Are they complicit in a Greco-pagan system?
Perhaps Slaveonone can give us some examples of heathen Greeks who quote the Bible to prove a point.
ii) I’d add that there’s more to the Reformed doctrine of depravity than a set of prooftexts. We have the exegesis to back it up.
***QUOTE***
Of course I've laid my definition... why wouldn't I say what I believe? Why would I back up definitions I don't believe? It's no strawman, it's laying bare the facts as I see them--you can't expect me to lay bare the facts that I don't see.
***END-QUOTE***
It’s a strawman argument if you say the Reformed doctrine of total depravity is self-defeating, even casting that claim in syllogistic form, only to redefine the key terms by evacuating Reformed usage of Reformed meaning and plugging in whatever definition you please.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
My blog isn't an apologetic blog--I'm not here to argue and debate others or bring long lists of scriptural references which *prove* my point [shakes head in sadness I'm here to state my opinions and views and thoughts and anyone is welcome to see them.
***END-QUOTE***
Is honesty part of his Jewish worldview? Or is honestly part of a Greco-pagan system?
Is he here to state demonstrably false opinions? To misrepresent the position he’s opposing.
Does he think he’s immune to correction? Is that part of his Jewish worldview?
It's certainly no part of the OT worldview or the NT worldview.
Philosophy of science 101 for Hallquist
***QUOTE***
Science 101 for Triablogue
Over on Triablogue, there's some fairly standard creationist nonsense in response to a comment from Daniel Morgan on one of their posts.
First, Daniel asked "Were the species all created ex nihilo?" In response, he was told it's a question of "kinds," not species.
This leads quickly to another question: what in the world is a "kind"? Creationists talk about it a lot, but never explain it.
http://uncrediblehallq.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
Actually, I did explain it, but I’ll go into more detail:
***QUOTE***
There is no evidence in these texts [Gen 1:11-12,20-21,24-25] for taking min [“kind”] as a technical term corresponding wit precision to family, genus, or species. (b) Min is used to indicate that the world is not a disorganized mass but a well-ordered subdivided whole, each individual plant and animal fitting into its own “kind” which in turn fits into a larger group. Min is a key term used for articulating the theme of order through separation. (c) This biblical taxonomy, of which min is a part, does not reflect a modern taxonomic perspective, but uses “the language of visual appearance.” While modern taxonomy separates birds from bees, the biblical perspective groups them together as “winged creatures” (Gen 1:20-21). Both are legitimate perspectives.
Of interest is Lev 11:16=Deut 144:15, which list nes among unclean birds. Nes has been identified as “Falco (Genus) peregrinus (species),” yet has subdivisions called min (apparently varieties within species), offering further evidence for the defiance of min to be correlated with a single modern category such as genus or species.
New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis 2:934.
***END-QUOTE***
Continuing with Hallquist:
***QUOTE***
A useful contrast is the Biological Species Concept--the idea that two populations are the same species if they can mate and procude fertile offspring. Because we know, among other things, that new species can evolve, creationists can't use "species" as "kind," but how do they propose to test whether two populations are the same "kind."
***END-QUOTE***
The identification of a natural “kind” in Scripture is an exegetical question, not a scientific question. What’s the semantic range and domain of Biblical usage in this respect? That’s the question.
And whether or not that allows for speciation is likewise a semantic question.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
In a similar vein, in response to the question of "Are the biologists lying about the descent with modification of species from common ancestors?", Daniel was told that the "It fails to distinguish between evidence for microevolution and evidence for macroevolution." Again, what is macro/microevolution? Mircoevolution has to include speciation. On the other had, the evidence for evolution at the level of taxonomic families is much the same as the evidence at the level of phyla. We're talking about things like the nested hierarchy, which most scientists think works at all levels. Do the Triabloggers think it works for families but not phyla? If so, what's their evidence?
***END-QUOTE***
i) Here’s one way of unpacking the micro/macroevolutionary distinction:
***QUOTE***
After Darwin, the first phenomenon (changes within an existing species or gene pool) was named "microevolution." There is abundant evidence that changes can occur within existing species, both domestic and wild, so microevolution is uncontroversial.
The second phenomenon (large-scale changes over geological time) was named "macroevolution," and Darwin's theory that the processes of the former can account for the latter was controversial right from the start. Many biologists during and after Darwin's lifetime have questioned whether the natural counterpart of domestic breeding could do what domestic breeding has never done—namely, produce new species, organs, and body plans.
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=118
***END-QUOTE***
ii) The nested hierarchy is one of the phenomena specifically addressed by Kurt Wise, which I already referred the reader to. Cf. J. Moreland, ed. The Creation Hypothesis (IVP 1994), 217-21.
Moving along:
***QUOTE***
The section on the age of the earth is rather confused. It's major points are something about resetting clocks, and "that radiometric decay rates are not designed to tell the time. That is not their natural function." For not recognizing these things, scientists are called "terribly gauche, which, in some ways, is worse" than being liars. Sorry guys, scientists are going to try to figure out how the world works, and they're going to do so without worringy about untestable hypotheticals. They will use electron mircroscopes to investigate matter even if Zeus didn't design electrons for that purose. They will use light to try to figure out the chemical composition of distant stars, even if Ra might be holding up a big mirror to confuse them. That's how science works. Deal with it.
***END-QUOTE***
i) How is what I said rather confused?
ii) Dating the age of the earth by linear extrapolation from radiometric decay rates is, itself, an untestable hypothetical.
iii) Once again, Hallquist resorts to an androcentric defense of his untestable assumptions: this is the way a human scientist goes about his work: deal with it!
a) This is quite ironic coming from a secularist. His position is more androcentric than the anthropic principle.
He doesn’t believe that the universe was fine-tuned for human life, but he acts as if the universe, even though it wasn’t fine-tuned for human life, was fine-tuned for human science.
He doesn’t believe that it was actually fine-tuned for human science, but he acts as if the universe can be treated as though it were fine-tuned for human science, even though it wasn’t.
Isn’t secular faith beautiful to behold?
b) My point is that a radiometric process is not a clock. To equate it with a clock fails to distinguish between its natural function, and our anthropomorphic analogy.
Hallquist is a secular version of Paley. He’s mounting an argument from analogy between a clock and a natural process which he equates with a timepiece.
Once again, this is all very ironic coming from a secularist.
c) I don’t object to a scientist using a periodic process as if it were a chronometer.
But my point is that unless we are going to delude ourselves with anthropomorphic projections onto the natural world, we need to draw an elementary distinction between what things are, in and of themselves, and how we use them—then make allowance for the fact that if we put a natural process to an unnatural use, it may let us down.
Hallquist is an Oreo atheist. He’s an atheist on the outside. But on the inside he acts as if the natural world were a set of artifacts, like an abandoned clock shop, designed by the divine watchmaker to tell him the time.
Science 101 for Triablogue
Over on Triablogue, there's some fairly standard creationist nonsense in response to a comment from Daniel Morgan on one of their posts.
First, Daniel asked "Were the species all created ex nihilo?" In response, he was told it's a question of "kinds," not species.
This leads quickly to another question: what in the world is a "kind"? Creationists talk about it a lot, but never explain it.
http://uncrediblehallq.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
Actually, I did explain it, but I’ll go into more detail:
***QUOTE***
There is no evidence in these texts [Gen 1:11-12,20-21,24-25] for taking min [“kind”] as a technical term corresponding wit precision to family, genus, or species. (b) Min is used to indicate that the world is not a disorganized mass but a well-ordered subdivided whole, each individual plant and animal fitting into its own “kind” which in turn fits into a larger group. Min is a key term used for articulating the theme of order through separation. (c) This biblical taxonomy, of which min is a part, does not reflect a modern taxonomic perspective, but uses “the language of visual appearance.” While modern taxonomy separates birds from bees, the biblical perspective groups them together as “winged creatures” (Gen 1:20-21). Both are legitimate perspectives.
Of interest is Lev 11:16=Deut 144:15, which list nes among unclean birds. Nes has been identified as “Falco (Genus) peregrinus (species),” yet has subdivisions called min (apparently varieties within species), offering further evidence for the defiance of min to be correlated with a single modern category such as genus or species.
New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis 2:934.
***END-QUOTE***
Continuing with Hallquist:
***QUOTE***
A useful contrast is the Biological Species Concept--the idea that two populations are the same species if they can mate and procude fertile offspring. Because we know, among other things, that new species can evolve, creationists can't use "species" as "kind," but how do they propose to test whether two populations are the same "kind."
***END-QUOTE***
The identification of a natural “kind” in Scripture is an exegetical question, not a scientific question. What’s the semantic range and domain of Biblical usage in this respect? That’s the question.
And whether or not that allows for speciation is likewise a semantic question.
Continuing:
***QUOTE***
In a similar vein, in response to the question of "Are the biologists lying about the descent with modification of species from common ancestors?", Daniel was told that the "It fails to distinguish between evidence for microevolution and evidence for macroevolution." Again, what is macro/microevolution? Mircoevolution has to include speciation. On the other had, the evidence for evolution at the level of taxonomic families is much the same as the evidence at the level of phyla. We're talking about things like the nested hierarchy, which most scientists think works at all levels. Do the Triabloggers think it works for families but not phyla? If so, what's their evidence?
***END-QUOTE***
i) Here’s one way of unpacking the micro/macroevolutionary distinction:
***QUOTE***
After Darwin, the first phenomenon (changes within an existing species or gene pool) was named "microevolution." There is abundant evidence that changes can occur within existing species, both domestic and wild, so microevolution is uncontroversial.
The second phenomenon (large-scale changes over geological time) was named "macroevolution," and Darwin's theory that the processes of the former can account for the latter was controversial right from the start. Many biologists during and after Darwin's lifetime have questioned whether the natural counterpart of domestic breeding could do what domestic breeding has never done—namely, produce new species, organs, and body plans.
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=118
***END-QUOTE***
ii) The nested hierarchy is one of the phenomena specifically addressed by Kurt Wise, which I already referred the reader to. Cf. J. Moreland, ed. The Creation Hypothesis (IVP 1994), 217-21.
Moving along:
***QUOTE***
The section on the age of the earth is rather confused. It's major points are something about resetting clocks, and "that radiometric decay rates are not designed to tell the time. That is not their natural function." For not recognizing these things, scientists are called "terribly gauche, which, in some ways, is worse" than being liars. Sorry guys, scientists are going to try to figure out how the world works, and they're going to do so without worringy about untestable hypotheticals. They will use electron mircroscopes to investigate matter even if Zeus didn't design electrons for that purose. They will use light to try to figure out the chemical composition of distant stars, even if Ra might be holding up a big mirror to confuse them. That's how science works. Deal with it.
***END-QUOTE***
i) How is what I said rather confused?
ii) Dating the age of the earth by linear extrapolation from radiometric decay rates is, itself, an untestable hypothetical.
iii) Once again, Hallquist resorts to an androcentric defense of his untestable assumptions: this is the way a human scientist goes about his work: deal with it!
a) This is quite ironic coming from a secularist. His position is more androcentric than the anthropic principle.
He doesn’t believe that the universe was fine-tuned for human life, but he acts as if the universe, even though it wasn’t fine-tuned for human life, was fine-tuned for human science.
He doesn’t believe that it was actually fine-tuned for human science, but he acts as if the universe can be treated as though it were fine-tuned for human science, even though it wasn’t.
Isn’t secular faith beautiful to behold?
b) My point is that a radiometric process is not a clock. To equate it with a clock fails to distinguish between its natural function, and our anthropomorphic analogy.
Hallquist is a secular version of Paley. He’s mounting an argument from analogy between a clock and a natural process which he equates with a timepiece.
Once again, this is all very ironic coming from a secularist.
c) I don’t object to a scientist using a periodic process as if it were a chronometer.
But my point is that unless we are going to delude ourselves with anthropomorphic projections onto the natural world, we need to draw an elementary distinction between what things are, in and of themselves, and how we use them—then make allowance for the fact that if we put a natural process to an unnatural use, it may let us down.
Hallquist is an Oreo atheist. He’s an atheist on the outside. But on the inside he acts as if the natural world were a set of artifacts, like an abandoned clock shop, designed by the divine watchmaker to tell him the time.
Monday, July 03, 2006
A Pseudo-Calvinistic Syllogism
***QUOTE***
A Calvinistic Syllogism
1. You should not trust or believe what a totally depraved person says.
2. If it is true that a Calvinist is totally depraved...
3. You should not trust or believe what a Calvinist says.
If this one point of Calvinism is true (total depravity), then you cannot trust or believe Calvinism. Calvinism is, therefore, self-defeating.
In order to deny this logical syllogism, you have to either 1. believe that you should trust or believe what a totally depraved person says (i.e., go to the local looney bin for advice and information), which is self-evidently absurd, or 2. believe that depravity is not total, which denies one of the key tenants of Calvinism and is therefore self-defeating of Calvinism anyway.
http://slaveofone.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
You know, it really wouldn’t hurt if just occasionally the critic of Calvinism were to actually acquaint himself with the system of doctrine he’s about to critique before he launches into a public attack.
This isn’t doing us a favor. This is doing himself a favor.
It’s as if slaveonone looked up “depravity” in Webster’s dictionary, then looked up “total,” then deduced the content of the doctrine from these dictionary definitions, then knocked off this cute little syllogism to disprove Calvinism in one fell swoop.
But theological terms are terms of art. Here are some representative statements of what total depravity means in Reformed theology”
“This phrase is often misunderstood, and therefore calls for careful discrimination. Negatively, it does not imply: (1) that every man is as thoroughly depraved as he can possible become; (2) that the sinner has no innate knowledge of the will of God, nor a conscience that discriminates between good and evil; (3) that sinful man does not often admire virtuous character and actions in others, or is incapable of disinterested affections and actions in his relations with his fellow-men; nor (4) that every unregenerate man, will, in virtue of his inherent sinfulness, indulge in every from of sin; it often happens that one form exclusive the other. Positively, it does indicate: (1) that the inherent corruption extends to every part of man’s nature, to all the faculties and powers of both soul and body; and (2) that there is no spiritual good, that is, good in relation to God, in the sinner at all, but only perversion,” L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 246-47.
“If human depravity is thought of as being only partial—that is, if fallen man is conceived of as still having the ability to turn to God in faith apart from a special working of the Holy Spirit—regeneration will be understood in a way quite different than if ‘natural’ (or unregenerate) human nature be though of as totally depraved. If, however, human beings are seen as being totally or pervasively deprived—that is, as totally unable to turn to God in faith apart from a special working of the Spirit—one’s understanding of the nature of regeneration will be different still,” A. Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Eerdmans 1989), 94.
“Negatively…inability does not deny the possibility of justitia civilis, that is natural and social virtue. Positively…it is inability to discern, love, or choose the things that are well pleasing to God,” J. Murray, Collected Writings 2:83.
“Does total depravity of nature mean that an unsaved person cannot do anything good? No. The unsaved person, by God’s common grace (or restraining power), can do things that are good within the civil or human sphere. For example, an unsaved person may save another from drowning, at the risk of his own life. But the unsaved person can do nothing that is spiritually good, that is, nothing truly good and pleasing in God’s sight. He may do things that are good in themselves, but he never does them with the right motive, namely, to love, serve, and please God; therefore even the ‘good' works of the unsaved person are spoiled and corrupted by sin,” J. Vos, The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary (P&R 2002), 61.
So there are two fundamental errors in slaveofone’s syllogism:
1.The major premise is flatly false.
Total depravity does not imply that the reprobate or unregenerate are either invariably or ordinarily untrustworthy.
2.Even if the major premise were true, the minor premise is flatly false. A Calvinist is regenerate, not unregenerate. And the noetic effects of sin are not the same for regenerate and unregenerate alike.
In particular, spiritual inability does not obtain in a state of grace.
Hence, slaveofone’s syllogism, even if it were formally valid, yields a false conclusion due to a false major syllogism and a false minor syllogism.
But such paltry defects aside, it’s a masterpiece of logical deduction!
A Calvinistic Syllogism
1. You should not trust or believe what a totally depraved person says.
2. If it is true that a Calvinist is totally depraved...
3. You should not trust or believe what a Calvinist says.
If this one point of Calvinism is true (total depravity), then you cannot trust or believe Calvinism. Calvinism is, therefore, self-defeating.
In order to deny this logical syllogism, you have to either 1. believe that you should trust or believe what a totally depraved person says (i.e., go to the local looney bin for advice and information), which is self-evidently absurd, or 2. believe that depravity is not total, which denies one of the key tenants of Calvinism and is therefore self-defeating of Calvinism anyway.
http://slaveofone.blogspot.com/
***END-QUOTE***
You know, it really wouldn’t hurt if just occasionally the critic of Calvinism were to actually acquaint himself with the system of doctrine he’s about to critique before he launches into a public attack.
This isn’t doing us a favor. This is doing himself a favor.
It’s as if slaveonone looked up “depravity” in Webster’s dictionary, then looked up “total,” then deduced the content of the doctrine from these dictionary definitions, then knocked off this cute little syllogism to disprove Calvinism in one fell swoop.
But theological terms are terms of art. Here are some representative statements of what total depravity means in Reformed theology”
“This phrase is often misunderstood, and therefore calls for careful discrimination. Negatively, it does not imply: (1) that every man is as thoroughly depraved as he can possible become; (2) that the sinner has no innate knowledge of the will of God, nor a conscience that discriminates between good and evil; (3) that sinful man does not often admire virtuous character and actions in others, or is incapable of disinterested affections and actions in his relations with his fellow-men; nor (4) that every unregenerate man, will, in virtue of his inherent sinfulness, indulge in every from of sin; it often happens that one form exclusive the other. Positively, it does indicate: (1) that the inherent corruption extends to every part of man’s nature, to all the faculties and powers of both soul and body; and (2) that there is no spiritual good, that is, good in relation to God, in the sinner at all, but only perversion,” L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 246-47.
“If human depravity is thought of as being only partial—that is, if fallen man is conceived of as still having the ability to turn to God in faith apart from a special working of the Holy Spirit—regeneration will be understood in a way quite different than if ‘natural’ (or unregenerate) human nature be though of as totally depraved. If, however, human beings are seen as being totally or pervasively deprived—that is, as totally unable to turn to God in faith apart from a special working of the Spirit—one’s understanding of the nature of regeneration will be different still,” A. Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Eerdmans 1989), 94.
“Negatively…inability does not deny the possibility of justitia civilis, that is natural and social virtue. Positively…it is inability to discern, love, or choose the things that are well pleasing to God,” J. Murray, Collected Writings 2:83.
“Does total depravity of nature mean that an unsaved person cannot do anything good? No. The unsaved person, by God’s common grace (or restraining power), can do things that are good within the civil or human sphere. For example, an unsaved person may save another from drowning, at the risk of his own life. But the unsaved person can do nothing that is spiritually good, that is, nothing truly good and pleasing in God’s sight. He may do things that are good in themselves, but he never does them with the right motive, namely, to love, serve, and please God; therefore even the ‘good' works of the unsaved person are spoiled and corrupted by sin,” J. Vos, The Westminster Larger Catechism: A Commentary (P&R 2002), 61.
So there are two fundamental errors in slaveofone’s syllogism:
1.The major premise is flatly false.
Total depravity does not imply that the reprobate or unregenerate are either invariably or ordinarily untrustworthy.
2.Even if the major premise were true, the minor premise is flatly false. A Calvinist is regenerate, not unregenerate. And the noetic effects of sin are not the same for regenerate and unregenerate alike.
In particular, spiritual inability does not obtain in a state of grace.
Hence, slaveofone’s syllogism, even if it were formally valid, yields a false conclusion due to a false major syllogism and a false minor syllogism.
But such paltry defects aside, it’s a masterpiece of logical deduction!
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