[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
[quote]wfifer wrote:
For all of you talking about reason, how are you missing the huge leap you’re taking there?
You can’t reason that you have the ability to reason.
Of course that line of thinking is a dead end, but it illustrates a point.
I’m not saying that I don’t value any particular philosophy over another, but I defy any one of you to come up with a bullet-proof defense of knowledge.[/quote]
I think I have a very solid response to this, but I would like you to clarify your point first. [/quote]
You know I think wfifer brings up an excellent point and even though I am a theist I believe you will like this short video and the argument that John Lennox brings up against the materialist. Tell me what you think about it. [/quote]
I’ve actually seen this before… it has been a while, but I vaguely remember it. So, I’m watching it now, and I’m going to address each point he makes as thoroughly as I can. I want do do so, because I honestly find this guy is presenting some insidiously perverse arguments. And, he presents them couched in terms intended to lend legitimacy to his arguments by making them appear to be grounded in exhaustive and erudite study. In other words, he’s a hell of a slick talker, but what he’s selling is utter bullshit.
- At 1:04 he makes the statement; “all science is based on a fundamental faith that the universe is rational and intelligible.” This is so untrue that it should be offensive to the intelligence of anyone who is watching this. Chaos theory, quantum mechanics, etc… there are whole disciplines of science that do not rely on an absolute rationality in the universe. Furthermore, the practice of science need not be any more significant than a process of continual discovery.
If it were conclusively determined tomorrow that the universe is the product of or subject to irrational and/or random forces, science would not stop happening.
[/quote] First of all you are misconstruing Chaos theory and quantum mechanics incorrectly, both theories are logically consistent in and of themselves and both attempt to describe what we can infer and deduce from nature and this hangs on the assumption that we can describe and perceive the world rationally. Highly sensitive initial conditions or having to describe the electron as a probabilistic wave function due to the mathematically deduced Heisenberg uncertainty principle doesn’t do away with the assumption that we can perceive and make statements about our world with any sense of intelligibility; otherwise there would be no value to the scientific method. Einstein has said “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.” which makes perfect sense from his and most materialist’s world view.
[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
2. From 2:05 to 2:55 he build up a premise that the human brain cannot produce rational or trustworthy thought if it is the product of the random mutative processes of natural selection. There are a number of different problems with this argument:
a.) He implies slyly that Richard Dawkins “virtually admitted that the brain is cobbled together in his book.” The book he is referring to is The Greatest Show on Earth, and in it Dawkins does not “virtually admit” this. Rather he builds the ENTIRE FUCKING PREMISE OF THE BOOK on this fact. This mis-contexting of published material that can easily be read and understood by anyone, I find particularly repulsive.
b.) He states that the process of natural selection which produced the human brain is “irrational.” There’s nothing irrational about natural selection. Random, yes. Incomplete, yes. Inefficient, absolutely… but, to call it irrational is either a lie or ignorance. Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection has withstood some of the most rigorous peer review of any theory, ever. I suppose this guy could have the opinion that it is irrational, but he is a distant outlier of the scientific community if he wants to make those kinds of assertions.
c.) He also draws a correlation between the random nature of natural selection and the functional processes of the human brain, stating that from an evolutionist’s perspective our thoughts are “simply the random motions of atoms in my brain.” This is a false characterization of how the brain works from an evolutionary biology perspective, and is thus the worst kind of straw man… anyone can argue against that type of assertion. That’s why it’s not a commonly held opinion.
d.) He uses the two assertions that I mentioned above in (b) and (c) to make the claim that the atheist worldview offers no rational basis for the intelligent processes of the mind. This is demonstrably false in my responses above. It also displays a willful ignorance of the subject matter. The book that he mentioned by Dawkins makes a great case for just this.
[/quote] I don’t think you understand the argument, just as in my critique of your evolutionary morality position what does evolution care about producing and selecting rationally intelligible beings or even that the universe that natural selection operates in is rationally intelligible in the first place. Nor can you use natural selection to explain your rationality because following that line of reasoning, you have been determined by natural selection to believe that natural selection brought about your belief and therefore we have nothing to argue about. Of course I don’t believe this therefore I will continue in our conversation.
[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
2. Starting at around 5 minutes, he makes the claim that christianity is in fact evidence-based.
a.) At 5:26 he states that the godhood and resurrection of Jesus Christ are a matter of historical fact. He also goes on to suggest that this view is supported by inference from available evidence much in the same way that investigation into the origin of the universe is, suggesting even that the disciplines of theology and cosmology are on equal footing from the perspective of evidentiary requirements.
In cosmology and astrophysics there are vast stores of physical evidence to be drawn upon; the cosmic background radiation, Hubble’s graphs, all manner of recent sky mapping studies, the behavior of the physical world, etc… In christian theology concerning the event’s of the life of Jesus Christ, there is what is written in the Bible and the occasional mention in other histories. His comparison is indefensible, and Christians who have any scientific bent should be embarrassed for him.
Even if we are to assume that the events of the life of Jesus as presented in the Bible can stand up to the rigor of historical investigation, comparing the study of history to the hard sciences of physics is laughable. I don’t mean to imply that history is not often useful where physics cannot be, but in this instance the evidentiary requirements of physics are the standard that should be adhered to. Historians are not in the business of determining the workings of the physical world. The Jesus stories can’t even stand up to the loose rules of theoretical physics.
b.) At 7:07 he again equates history with scientific evidence. There are similarities between history and evidentiary-based science, but the two are not entirely the same. This is another lame attempt to attach the credibility of hard science to a particular interpretation of some historical documents.
c.) At 6:56 he states that “the claim is that God is a person, not a theory, and if you want to get to know the person you have to open yourself up to them.” This builds upon his etymological definition of science presented about 30 seconds earlier as being to “look from afar.” So, essentially he is stating that in order to understand his god, one must first give up their attempt to verify that he does in fact exist, accept his premise that his god is a person, and then “open themselves up” to this person…
What he is offering is that the answer to the question of whether or not a god exists is that first you must accept his premise about God’s existence. Then, it will become clear… well… no shit! If one were to believe that God exists, then they are likely to believe that God exists.
In other words… I think it’s an illogical, poorly sourced, intentionally misleading pile of crap. 
[/quote] I don’t think this has much to do with what wfifer brought up therefore I won’t comment on much of it, is that insult intended to make come up with a good rebuttal?
