Given recent posts here at TSZ challenging the validity of presuppositions and self-evident truths I thought the following list might be worthy of debate.
Presuppositions of Science
1. The existence of a theory-independent, external world
2. The orderly nature of the external world
3. The knowability of the external world
4. The existence of truth
5. The laws of logic
6. The reliability of our cognitive and sensory faculties to serve as truth gatherers and as a source of justified true beliefs in our intellectual environment
7. The adequacy of language to describe the world
8. The existence of values used in science
9. The uniformity of nature and induction
10. The existence of numbers
When critics object to the Logos as a presupposition and offer instead 10 other presuppositions, Ockham’s Razor flies out the window.
fifthmonarchyman,
And again, you are making claims. You explicitly claim that “Jesus is lord”, but fail to support that.
You also claim that Christianity is true. You try to evade the burden of proof by labeling your claims as “presuppositions”, but that doesn’t fool anyone. You want to assume your conclusion rather than face the difficult task of actually supporting your claims. That’s what I keep pointing out as intellectually dishonest (whether you are doing it deliberately or because you simply refuse to recognize your own behavior).
So I repeat: Show some integrity — defend your claims. If you won’t, at least havåe the decency to admit that you hold your beliefs by faith in the absence of evidence. That at least would be honest.
I’m not sure I would go so far as to say he was incapable of sinning. only that he did not sin. His Divine nature would be incapable his human side I’m not sure
no goalpost shift, There are certain things that are necessarily a part of being a living animal in the physical universe birth for example and other things that are not like sin. Christ needed to experience all the necessary things and not the unnecessary things.
peace
Not a problem except perhaps for Occam’s razor. Are you aware of a proposed Godhead with more than three persons?
Each member could perform any of the functions at different times
Ever hear of Union with Christ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_with_Christ
Well fifth? 😛
If he never masurbated, then he was not fully human.
It is somewhat incoherent to say an entity is fully human and without sin.
fifth,
This God you believe in is a piece of work.
First he creates humans with the ability to sin. Then, when they make use of this God-given ability, as he knew they would, he is furious and demands with perfect “benevolence” that they be tortured for eternity. He refuses to forgive them. That is, unless a suitable someone can be tortured in their place (which is perfect “justice”, by the way).
Whom to torture? Failing to find any good candidates, God decides to torture himself to death, in the form of his Son. If someone sins against You, you must torture yourself to death. That will make everything better. Perfectly rational, perfectly sensible, perfectly benevolent, perfectly just.
Oh, and by the way, unless God passes through a vagina first, then torturing himself to death doesn’t count. Why? Because God won’t accept his own torture as legitimate unless it comes after passing through a vagina. Vagina passage is very important to God.
Well, with all of that out of the way, can the sinners finally be forgiven? No, of course not. They have to jump through the additional hoop of believing this claptrap. Only the gullible are welcome in heaven.
The ones who are smart enough to roll their eyes at this get punished forever. They are using their God-given brains and must suffer for it, even though God passed through a vagina and then tortured himself to death.
If there really is a God, fifth, he’s probably laughing his ass off at what you believe about him.
A signal is a channel. We are talking about nonphysical beings here
peace
fifth,
A signal is not a channel. A signal is carried by a channel.
The miracles we were talking about were miracles associated with the Logos becoming flesh. You know raising the dead walking on water and stuff like that.
This is not your garden variety revival tent fare.
peace
fifth,
Neither is the healing of amputees. Why does God refuse to do it?
As soon as I make a claim I’ll try to defend it. I’m really not trying to change anybodies mind here I’m just answering questions.
I already showed that Jesus is Lord of me and that his reign is expanding. What more do you want? Do you want me to prove he is your Lord? Well that would be impossible because he is not your Lord in any sort of conscious sense.
Keith’s says that he would be satisfied with indirect evidence like we have for dark energy would that work for you?
If so a defense might go something like this.
Our understanding of gravity makes something like dark matter necessary.
In the same way my understanding of knowledge makes something like the Christian God necessary.
If the Christian God is necessary for knowledge then Jesus is Lord by definition so my asking you how you know stuff in your worldview is a way of testing the hypothesis that Jesus is Lord.
If you come up with a coherent way for justified true belief to actually (as apposed to hypothetically) exist in your worldview I would be interested to hear it.
Like I said I’m really not interested in convincing you. If I was I would do spend my time coming up with arguments to that effect.
Hope that helps.
peace
There really is not a lot of similarity between what I believe and what you posted so you need to take that up with someone else
peace
no a message is carried by a signal.
For example the signal part of the Bat Signal is the beam of light, The message is what is carried on the signal. in this case a picture of a bat
I might have the incorrect terminology but you get the point
peace
Miracles happen mainly as confirmatory sign for revelation. There is no revelation that needs a confirmatory sign right now.
If there were to be some new scripture revealed then I would expect that sort of miracle since there is none I don’t really look for it today.
peace
You’d be served by clearer thinking as you devise your test.
Simply put, your response to all exemplars of knowledge acquired without reference to God/Logos/Christ has been to repeat your presupposition that all knowledge depends upon the God/Logos/Christ, and that the exemplar offered is therefore actually dependent (“parasitical”) upon GLC, and therefore fails as counter example. Then you ask for another. Rinse and repeat.
So your experiment is structured to give only the result you want. Unfortunately, you’re the only one that perceives any value in the result.
If you really want to test your pressupposition regarding the role of GLC in knowledge, you have to forgo applying that presupposition to disqualify otherwise disconfirming examples. Doing so is circular.
Sin is not common human weakness it is deliberate rebellion. If deliberate rebellion is a necessary part of being human then salvation is truly impossible.
The cool thing that Jesus proved that we don’t have to be rebels.
I’ll grant you that it is impossible for a natural fallen man not to sin. That of course is what regeneration is all about
quote:
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
(Joh 3:3)
end quote:
peace
i don’t think you understand what is going on here, To prove that knowelege is possible you need to prove that truth exists in your worldview real truth not hypothetical truth.
The closest I’ve heard are claims that if a belief is true and justified then knowledge exists.
I would agree with that. In fact that is my position as well
If truth exists then knowelege is possible
What I want to know is how you know that truth exists.
So far it’s been crickets to that question
peace
Again I’m not interested in convincing you so whether you perceive any value is immaterial to me.
Everything does not have to be about you does it?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
You have utterly failed to do so thus far.
The first part of that sentence was not your claim, as I already noted. You have not supported the second part, and in fact it is contradicted by the increasing prevalence of the Nones.
You are being grossly disingenuous. If you had asserted “Jesus is my lord” then there would be no reason not to take you at your word. You instead asserted “Jesus is lord.” Support it or retract it.
You also have failed to address your pathetic attempts to evade your burden of proof by labeling your claims that Christianity is true as “presuppositions.” That is intellectually dishonest on its face. A decent, honest person would either support those claims or admit that he holds them based solely on faith, in the absence of evidence. You haven’t done either. That speaks volumes about your ethics.
fifthmonarchyman,
Your understanding of communications theory is on a par with your mathematical knowledge.
You have made this charge several times. Would you like to defend it?
First off how is your charge not a violation of the rules of this site?
quote:
Assume all other posters are posting in good faith.
end quote:
peace
FMM:
Would you please define “real truth” versus “hypothetical truth?”
people moving from nominal Christianity to none is not a contradiction of my claim
Jesus is not the Lord of nominal Christians.
peace
6. The reliability of our cognitive and sensory faculties to serve as truth gatherers and as a source of justified true beliefs in our intellectual environment
So he could be honest by lying. Good one!
Are you planning to step down as a “moderator” or have you already done so?
Because he hates being gullible. But if you just toss up a post asking him to send money, he’ll do that. I laugh every time he says gullible.
Are you kidding? I would never send money to you or fifth.
You apparently missed the post by keiths in which he claimed Christianity is false.
Not like keiths. He defended his claim. He was intellectually honest.
At least have the decency to admit you have a double standard. That at least would be honest.
I always love it when I come across an information dualist. Is the signal only physical when it gets to the “physical layer” of the stack? What’s the mechanism by which your immaterial signal becomes physical at the physical layer?
Poor Mung.
Having failed at Bible studies, he is now tackling communication theory with predictable results.
Will you be defending your belief in objective morality in this life or the next?
This is one thing that absolutely confounds me about atheists. Are you just confused about morality? You embrace incoherence and count it a virtue?
Judgmental atheism. Next thing you’ll be starting atheist churches.
Great defense. “I may be gullible, but i am not THAT gullible.”
Sigh!
The signal is physical. It still needs a channel. The channel carries the signal. The signal carries the information. At least on my view, the information is not physical (it is abstract, or a useful fiction), that is carried by the physical signal.
This is mostly beside the point. Fifth divides communication into three components. His subdivision is arbitrary, so as to fit his theology.
Noise.
Information is non physical because it is a metaphor. Anything that can be called information is physical.
Science presupposes metaphors. Metaphors are non-physical. Therefore science presupposes the non-physical. 🙂
Maps are not the territory.
fifth,
You’ve said that knowledge is impossible under my worldview, but you haven’t been able to support that claim (to no one’s surprise).
Let me repeat my challenge:
Show me that my beliefs cannot possibly be justified and true, fifth.
They only exist inside a biological construct, in the relationships between neurons. Or as potential metaphors – words on a page, in ink and paper, to be translated into those relationships upon reading.
Is light non-physical Mung?
Crack a book?
fifthmonarchyman,
I am making the assumption that you are posting in good faith (although your behavior makes that pretense increasingly harder to maintain). That doesn’t change the fact that your refusal to defend your claims and your attempts to evade the burden of proof are, in fact, dishonest, even if they aren’t deliberate.
I have explained the reasons for reaching this conclusion several times. That you ask for me to do so again is further demonstration that, by design or accident, you are not being honest. Once more:
1) You made the explicit claim that “Jesus is lord.” When asked to support that claim you replied with the equivalent of “Well, I consider him MY lord.” If you aren’t willing to support what you said the honest response is to retract it.
2) You have repeatedly made the claim that (your brand of) Christianity is true. When asked to support that claim, you retreated to calling it a “presupposition.” This is a blatant attempt to evade the burden of proof.
3) You claim that (your brand of) Christianity is necessary to know anything, but have utterly failed to make that case despite repeated requests.
4) You continue to claim that you aren’t making claims, despite 1, 2, and 3.
5) You claim that your design detection tool works, when it failed completely on the test cases I provided.
Those are not honest behaviors. You may be acting in this way from sincere beliefs and hence be posting in good faith, but you are not demonstrating intellectual integrity.
Either support your claims or simply admit that you hold your beliefs due to faith in the absence of evidence. Any other response is not honest.
That’s not an answer to my question.
Answer these questions with Yes or No if you please:
Do you believe people are healed by the power of the holy spirit today?
Have blind people been cured?
Have cripples walked?
Has cancer been removed?
Have any amputees regrown limbs?
My prediction is you will either say Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No.
Or you will have to say No, No, No, No, No.
If people are being healed by the holy spirit today, explain why no amputees are getting new limbs. If people are not being healed by the holy spirit, then well we are agreed.
Again this is not a positive claim on my part It’s only a starting position. knowledge could possibly exist in your worldview if actual truth exists in your worldview
I would be interested to know how you know that truth exists in your worldview.
What is really interesting to me is how you keep reading my statement of presuppositions as claims. I wonder why that is?
peace
That is part of what it means to call Jesus is Lord. So my statement is support for the claim
That Christianity is true is my presupposition it is not a claim. It also happens to be a revealed truth. Revelation counts as evidence in my worldview
Not sure how you can say that, walto for one has agreed that if God exists then he could reveal stuff to me in such a way that I could not be mistaken
Correct I’m not making claims. I am not putting God in the dock. I don’t have the right to do so
I’ll grant that my unmodified tool does not work on your binary strings because the resolution was too low. With binary you only have a go or no go there is no depth. I think that my tool will work with modifications but I’m not claiming that it will. I’ll need to test it.
while we are on the subject how is your hack that would only take a couple of weeks going?
peace
FMM, above you distinguish between “real truth” and “hypothetical truth,” and indicate that you are really asking if someone can show that “real truth” can exist absent Christianity.
Would you please define “real truth,” as distinct from “hypothetical truth?”
People are being healed but I’m not sure I would classify any individual healing as miraculous. I know I have not witnessed any that were sufficiently outside the normal realm of expected possibilities.
I have witnessed a couple of events that I might label “providential signs” but no miracles.
I would have to evaluate prospective miracles on a case by case basis. Like I said I would not expect any unless there was some new revelation that needed confirmation
peace
Real truth is truth that actually exists.
Hypothetical truth is truth that exists if truth exists.
In my worldview truth actually exists because the Logos is truth and the Logos exists necessarily.
I’m looking for something like that in your worldview. What I’ve seen so far are statements like “If X is true then truth exists”. That is hypothetical truth
I hope that helps
peace
When you say “people are being healed” what do you mean? People are being healed all the time, by doctors and medicine. Is that what you mean?
My father got his MD around 1932. He was taught that 70 percent of patients would get well without any treatment at all. Under such circumstances, a large component of medical training was bedside manner. A task mostly occupied now by the various tribes of faith healers.
Many diseases have less favorable prognoses, but even the dire, mostly fatal diseases have variations in life expectancy and some percentage of spontaneous remission. Stephen Gould acquired a fatal disease and discovered that a six month life expectancy translated to a normal distribution, with some people living many years.
The problem with quackery and faith healing is not that hope is bad, but that medicine advances, and I think it is evil to ignore scientific medicine. Even if current technology cannot cure, experimental medicine offers hope for future generations.