| skeptic88 |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 01:30 AM | Reply with quote #31 |
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| Dr Craig differentiates between the magisterial use of reason, and the ministerial use of reason. In the context of Christian apologetics, theistic arguments are not the grounds for one's belief in Christianity, but are a posteriori to, or are the means by which God causes you to believe or 'see' that Christianity is true.
So it doesn't suffice to axiomatically assume God's existence as a means to 'see' that Christianity is true? In what sense, then, has one taken the truth of god's existence to be self-evident?
The reason why a Christan does or should reason logically and to give such a defence for Chistianity, is because God has commanded us to do so.
So do you see the rules of logic as self-evident, or do you accept them as true only because god has commanded you to do so?
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| troyjs |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 01:54 AM | Reply with quote #32 |
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Quote: So it doesn't suffice to axiomatically assume God's existence as a means to 'see' that Christianity is true? In what sense, then, has one taken the truth of god's existence to be self-evident?
No it does not suffice, if you mean by assume, to autonomously adopt. By self-evident, I mean that it seems to be so, a priori to justification, in the same sense that it seems evident to me that I am awake rather than dreaming.
Quote: So do you see the rules of logic as self-evident, or do you accept them as true only because god has commanded you to do so?
I personally consider them as self-evident, however this is not my justification for the use of them. It is both truth that they are self-evident, and that I consider them to be true only because God has commanded me to do so.
If being self-evident is sufficient, then why do you deny the Christian from believing something to be true, if it happens to be self-evident for them? Being self-evident may not be the reason for why the Christian affirms Christianity, but if being self-evident is sufficient for you, what ground do you have for denying the Christian for affirming his beliefs?
kind regards
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| rsmartin |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 01:56 AM | Reply with quote #33 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by lionofjudah
Skeptic 88, I guess what im getting at is that NO amount of evidence will really change an atheists mind. We are all determined by our predispositions. For example, lets say you walk into a room and there sitting is WLC, Plantinga, J.P Moreland, N.T Wright, and a bunch of other really super smart theists. And you have a discussion on God and they have reasons better reasons to accept God than you do to reject God. Would you really throw up your hands and say God exists? I doubt it, I bet you would run home and go to internet infidels .com and try to look up any defeaters you can to try and negate God belief and hold to your atheism. Just my 2 cents
Is this your opinion of atheists in general or just of one particular person? Because it most certainly does not hold true for me. Those guys have to actually answer my questions re how salvation works and prove the existence of God in order for me to believe.
It has to make sense on a logical and ethical level as well as be biblical and stand the scrutiny of empirical investigation. The Bible and Christianity promises this and I expect no less. God cannot lie, the Bible says; he is perfectly just, merciful, and righteous--far superior to mere mortals.
These men will have to explain things in such a way as to make it all make sense in light of these high qualifications and expectations set for God, and in light of everything I know about the universe or can learn from any source anywhere. Are my standards high? The perfect God I was taught to trust is much higher and can easily pass the test. Providing he exists.
And no, second-hand testimony of his existence is not good enough. He has promised to come to all who sincerely seek him. He is obligated to reveal himself to me personally. If he exists.
The rest of you can answer questions that lead me to him but he will have to do his own revealing. God is, after all, God. If he exists.
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| troyjs |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 01:57 AM | Reply with quote #34 |
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| I may axiomatically assume Idealism and Subjectivism to be true, however if you through a ball at me, I may inadvertently try to catch it. What one assumes, even axiomatically, and what deems self-evident, are not necessarily coextensively interchangeable. |
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| skeptic88 |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 02:11 AM | Reply with quote #35 |
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If being self-evident is sufficient, then why do you deny the Christian from believing something to be true, if it happens to be self-evident for them?
I don't think that the rules of logic being self-evident is sufficient to establish their truth. I'm not sure if we can even know if the rules of logic really are "true", since we cannot reason that they must be. Therefore I don't think it follows that the belief that god is self-evident should have any relationship to the truth of the matter.
Even if we assume that we cannot know the truth of the rules of logic, we still all implicitly agree upon them. |
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| troyjs |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 02:44 AM | Reply with quote #36 |
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Quote: I don't think that the rules of logic being self-evident is sufficient to establish their truth. I'm not sure if we can even know if the rules of logic really are "true", since we cannot reason that they must be. Therefore I don't think it follows that the belief that god is self-evident should have any relationship to the truth of the matter.
Even if we assume that we cannot know the truth of the rules of logic, we still all implicitly agree upon them. Yes, but you set the rules of logic as a measure of truth, yet you agree that they can not be justified. The only difference between set 1(All humans), and set 2(Christians), is that all the members of set 1 can not help but implicitly affirm the validity of logic, and all the members of set 2 can not help but implicitly affirm the validity of Christian theism. We may all deem logic to be reliable, because we can't help to rely upon it, and Christians may all find Christianity to be believable, because it just seems so to us. It may just be that the reason why you don't find Christianity believable, is because you don't believe it, and naturally as a member of set 1, you ask for logical and reasonable argumentation. When asked for a justification for your adherence to logic however, I don't believe your position is categorically different to the one of the Christian. kind regards |
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| skeptic88 |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 11:49 AM | Reply with quote #37 |
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| I don't think it's possible to determine the truth of the rules of logic, since truth should mean being in accord with logic itself.
Therefore I am more than willing to admit that the rules of logic cannot be assumed to be true. But like I said, we nonetheless agree upon them to form a basis for determining logical truths.
So it may very well be that I have no justification for my adherence to the rules of logic. Just as a Christian may very well have no justification for his belief that the truth of god is self-evident. In both cases, the fact that they may be self-evident to some of us is not sufficient to establish their truth.
Once we accept the axioms of logic, which we all do (regardless of their truth), one can ask whether or not the existence of god is true with respect to logic.
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| hatsoff |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 01:17 PM | Reply with quote #38 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by skeptic88
Why is it that eigenfunctions for distinct eigenvalues are orthogonal, for hermitian operators?
Because eigenvalues for Hermitian operators are always real, so we can use that fact along with the self adjoint property to show that (a-b)(f|g) is zero for eigenfunctions f,g with respective eigenvalues a,b.
: )
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| skeptic88 |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 02:14 PM | Reply with quote #39 |
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| Haha, damn straight! |
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| lucid |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 02:24 PM | Reply with quote #40 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by troyjs
You want to think according to certain rules or modes, however you are either not willing or not capable of justifying your preference for doing so.
This is brilliant. You are stooping so low as to question the very value of logic itself in order to support some absurd notion that such concepts are meaningless unless they belong to an all powerful being.
All sciences are based on assumptions about nature. If you don't trust those assumptions, then why are you using a computer?
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| skeptic88 |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 03:01 PM | Reply with quote #41 |
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| I mean, fundamentally, he's right that we all make certain axiomatic assumptions. But we don't need to know that logic is "true" in order to all agree to use it, or to find it useful.
So Christians may equivalently axiomatically assume that God exists, but this doesn't mean it's true. And it certainly isn't logically true.
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| hatsoff |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 03:08 PM | Reply with quote #42 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by troyjs
Yes, but you set the rules of logic as a measure of truth, yet you agree that they can not be justified. The only difference between set 1(All humans), and set 2(Christians), is that all the members of set 1 can not help but implicitly affirm the validity of logic, and all the members of set 2 can not help but implicitly affirm the validity of Christian theism.
We may all deem logic to be reliable, because we can't help to rely upon it, and Christians may all find Christianity to be believable, because it just seems so to us. It may just be that the reason why you don't find Christianity believable, is because you don't believe it, and naturally as a member of set 1, you ask for logical and reasonable argumentation. When asked for a justification for your adherence to logic however, I don't believe your position is categorically different to the one of the Christian.
Our attachment to logical principles is much stronger than a Christian's attachment to Christianity. Frankly, I don't know what it even means to suggest that, say, ~~A is not equivalent to A. When you remind us that we cannot help but be convinced of such logical principles, you are not speaking loosely.
In contrast, Christians doubt Christianity all the time, and many actually leave the faith. They can help themselves, and they have natural and intuitive alternatives to the framework that they use---alternatives which are superior insofar as they are actually supported by experience.
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| lucid |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 04:55 PM | Reply with quote #43 |
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| This is a dishonest tactic designed to defeat every possible argument that a skeptic could make against christianity, but it wins only by destroying every argument imaginable in the process.
Christian: Christianity is true
Skeptic: Christianity is probably false because of reasons x, y and z.
Christian: Ah but how can you trust logic and reason when you have no reasonable, logical justification for them?
Skeptic: Hmm?
If the christian wants to take this idea seriously, then he must now admit that there is nothing we can reasonably conclude. Milk makes you fly and milk doesn't make you fly are both equally reasonable statements in this light.
But of course, the christian doesn't really believe this, because the argument against logic is not used in good faith, it is just a debate tactic designed to kick up enough dust with which to make an escape. Truth be told, the christian, being a hypocrite, will go back to using the principles of reason and logic as soon as the debate is over. |
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| lionofjudah |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 05:24 PM | Reply with quote #44 |
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Skeptic: Quote: lionofjudah: what evidence would you accept as sufficient to believe in the existence of Thor?
Well thats separate than belief in God (broad definition of theism or deism) since if this is the case we have the background knowledge that God exists all the evidence that I would require is that Thor revealed himself in some way. I believe Jesus has revealed himself via the resserection and we can verify this via the historical method. Thats not without debate though, I think there is very little or no debate about Thor. |
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| lionofjudah |
| Posted 03/06/12 at 05:29 PM | Reply with quote #45 |
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| Rsmartin that was a great answer but I have a few problems with what you said. You believe that you cannot be convinced of God through argumentation? Thats what it appeared to me that you were saying. And that to me, seems silly for example. Since God has revealed himself to us, The kalam or teleological or moral or resserection ALL of these arguments would be God revealing himself in nature! And if you can be convinced that God has revealed himself in nature than God exists. Furthermore, perhaps he has clearly revealed himself but because of sin our sense of God has been injured or evern because of sin our cognitive faculties of discerning God have been impaired. |
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