Seems to me that your blog post is simply an attempt to deal with the problem caused by there being other mthods than theistic to acquire and interpret knowledge, and to put god chronologically ahead of them, so just 'first cause' with another skin. But it doesn't prove god, yours or anyone elses.

Wut? God seems to come from completely out of nowhere here. How is that not special pleading or circular?

I reject theism entirely, with the proviso that I can't know that there are no gods, and I have a scientific outlook that ignores the supernatural as not Useful, and I use that scientific paradigm to acquire and interpret knowledge. I don't think you've shown that this can't be something that could exist if god isn't real.

Having the true god is like having the best dog or the best country. Everybody has it. It's a sentiment and nothing more.

Rhetorical question(s): Would you agree that primitive, ignorant, pre-scientific societies postulated a myriad of different gods to "explain" life and the world? What does this say about the veracity and reliability of such claims?

Not much. Something can be true regardless of the motivations for holding that belief.

So if there are thousands of conflicting stories and "explanations" based on simply believing, that doesn't bear on whether they map to reality?? And it has "not much" to do with whether or not such an approach is reliable? Hmm.

"Cheers to all the people who can change their mind when presented with information that conflicts with their beliefs."

.

Please elaborate on this, if you can.

The proof of Christ is seen in the fervor of his clueless and timid disciples who risked life and limb to spread his message after they witnessed his resurrection. Biggest grass routes cult success story.

If you guys want to up your spiritual game I suggest reading the best book/mystical text in existence

https://www.urantia.org/urantia-book...87-ghost-cults

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The million dollar question.

Lagtight, the response is typically something like "because of the impossibility of the contrary", which I hope you can agree isn't an actual explanation, but simply expressing the claim again in different form. So...how could someone determine whether out not this is true?



Something I'm particularly interested in asking you about is summed up by your own words:
What I'd like to know is how you, personally, could determine whether or not this apologetic is true. After all, it is not part of Biblical text, but mostly attributed to the likes of Van Til. How do you know that you have not been deceived (or simply mistaken) by mere mortals?

I expect you're familiar with Sye Ten Bruggencate who popularised this apologetic a few years back. In times of surprising honesty, he's admitted that he used to be an evidential apologist but was frustrated with its lack of 'results'. When he discovered presuppose, he described it as a way to shut down discussion. Frankly, this sounds like an admission of failure in having any discussion.


Thx for responding, I think it's interesting to have a self-described fundamentalist Christian like yourself who is, at least in theory, open to discussing their position in the way you often do.

I will do some "cut and paste" from some articles by astrophysicist Jason Lisle that he wrote when he worked at Answers in Genesis. Probably will do that Monday afternoon Pacific Time.

Please all do yourself a favor and read the Urantia Text, it is not of this world and will answer 100% of your philosophical spiritual questions. The best read of your life guaranteed

This makes no sense to me. You essentially are arguing that:

X (Christian God) has immutable characteristic Z (universality).
Y (laws of logic) also has immutable characteristic Z (universality).
Therefore we can conclude one of the following three things: (i) X is the source of Y; (ii) the existence of Y proves the existence of X; or (iii) X and Y are some sort of unified concept.

I'm not entirely clear whether you are arguing for (i), (ii), or (iii), but I don't see how any of the formulations work as an exercise in formal logic.

How is this different than arguing:

Campfires are always hot.
Lava is always hot.
Therefore, one of the following three things is true: (i) Campfires are the source of lava; (ii) the existence of lava proves the existence of campfires; or (iii) campfires and lava are a unified concept.

Also, one prong of your syllogism -- the statement that the Christian God has the immutable characteristic of universality -- effectively is an unproven assumption.

Fixed My Own Post. Busier than I thought. Wasting time posting stuff in the Politics Forum.

"As long as we think someone else is the answer, we postpone becoming the answer." This is a truism of human psychology and applies nearly universally, but it applies in particular to pre-medieval "answers" in the form of magical saviors.

Discussion is ending and the "you're going to hell if you don't believe in our magic" clan doesn't seem to be winning, so what do you say we lock it up? Come on, in the name of reason and fairness.

The reason the other thread got locked was not because the conversation died. It's because you didn't let it die. You kept bumping the thread with generally thoughtless two sentence comments. Most threads don't need to be locked because they just quietly fade away. Maybe you should look at some other threads and do an inventory about how those threads wind down and compare it to the thread that you caused to get locked up. You just might learn something.

Well, he *might* learn something. But I doubt it.

I had a busy week, so this weekend I can post something thought-provoking in this thread. Hopefully I can find the Lisle stuff that I mentioned earlier.

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I hate to derail your babbling by asking for facts, but here goes:

Who in this Forum belongs to a clan that believes, "you are going to hell if you don't believe in our magic?"

I do not belong to that clan, and I'm confident Aaron doesn't either. Please name names, or admit you're a foolish, babbling troll.

Thanks, mate!

Addendum:And when you "name names", please include a post from the named name proving your assertion. Thanks.

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I have to confess that my post above is quite disingenuous, because I don't expect a serious response from Gaga.


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You're assuming that you have a grasp on what is real such that you can 'map' things to that reality. I'd love to hear how you're doing that?

Perhaps you could include an explanation of why you are convinced by it?

This short article might help:

https://sharperiron.org/article/brie...al-apologetics

The Lisle article is fairly long, so after Christmas I will post that article with my thoughts about it.

As this will be my last post in this Forum until after Christmas: Merry Christmas, everybody!

I'm familiar enough with presuppositional apologetics that I'm only really interested in your thoughts, in particular how / if you have evaluated it, to determine whether it is correct, true, useful, convincing, Biblical, etc.

You too, look forward to your thoughts.

The miracle claims and supernatural claims are tantamount to magic. Every believer, as I understand it, is required to believe them. No? If yes, then consider EVERY BELIEVER on earth to be "named" according to what I wrote.

The religion is composed of apocryphal stories like all the rest of the religions. That is like at near 100% certainty. I posted a "Biblical syllogism" from hell on here several times, and nobody touched it. Because it can't be touched.

As far as a religion is comprised as apocryphal stories attempting to make sense of things beyond understanding, obviously fine and can even be sacred. To the extent a religion says dogmatically "and it's literally true," and you are going to hell if you don't believe it ... it has moved into divisive, evil territory.

Human beings are tribal. Their religions are tribal. Period.