[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:<<< Incorrect, Mister “I am the only real Christian around here”. >>>[/quote]Nods head slowly…[/quote]Fixed for accuracy. Nothing worse than a self righteous liar.[/quote]Your assertion is that I’m saying that I’m the only Christian here and or that only people who believe precisely what I do are saved? That’s what you say I’ve been saying?
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]TigerTime wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]TigerTime wrote:<<< … Wait, what sort of Christian are you exactly?[/quote]There’s only one “sort of Christian”. I would have gone unnoticed and been considered boring and average in the American colonies. In the rotting spiritual corpse of the 21st century United States I’m an intolerant anachronistic self righteous antique. Even in the “church”. ESPECIALLY in the church. “Church” being used here to refer to the universal community claiming to be Christian. [quote]TigerTime wrote:<<< By “cognition” I’m talking about mental process (attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions). I “know things” because I have a brain that can do the things listed above. [/quote]You’ve never thought about this before by which I intend no insult. Even as a disciple of Christ I went quite a while before doing so myself even though It’s all over the bible.
You keep reporting to me the results of your ultimate all governing framework for knowledge, not the framework itself. You keep telling me the bicycle is fixed. I’m asking what tools you used to fix it. I happen to know it’s the same set that every other unbeliever is using.
HOW do you understand and solve problems? Using what tools do you turn the nuts and screws on a given “problem” in the confident hope of reaching a conclusion certain enough to settle on? This is not a trick question. It’s just one very few ever ask themselves. I’ll rephrase. How do you know that 2+2 does NOT equal 5. Or any other sum?
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… not gunna lie, I really don’t know what you’re asking me any more.
What tools do I use to solve problems? My brain isn’t an adequate answer? What exactly are you using?
I know 2^2 doesn’t equal 5 because I can conceive of 2 groups of 2 and count them. And I count to 4 when I finish. It does not equal 5 because I can see it equals 4.
How can I conceive of these numbers? My brain. These numbers aren’t objective truths, they’re just a means to organize our thoughts and enable us to convey meanings to each other.[/quote]What I’m asking you is by what criteria does counting return a reliable result? I absolutely promise I am NOT playing games with you. I also do not think you’re a bonehead for not having grabbed hold of where I’m going yet. People, even very sharp ones, rarely think in these terms yet this realm is THE key to all knowledge. ALL knowledge whatsoever at it’s very foundation.
[/quote]
Right, so, counting 4 objects can be misleading because my brain could have an error than makes me see additional objects or something, but if we’re just talking abstract numbers then I can say with certainty that 2^2 equals 4.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
When would this high point in history be? I do appreciate that you recognize that I would have been quite average at the time of the revolution.
[/quote]
Most recently? The 20th Century, with 45 million martyrs for the faith out of 70 million. Another point in time was the first few centuries, we had our King and Pope martyred as well as pretty much every Bishop we had at the time.
Yeah, except I never acknowledge that. I’m not a puritan nor do I like puritanism. Further…I haven’t much study of the Revolution. I’m still working on the 1-4th century and recently jumped ahead to Renaissance because of a class.[/quote]It was the theology and commensurate worldview of the Anglican and Presbyterian traditions that spawned this once greatest of all nations Chris. Oh yes it was. The theology AND the morality. When Jefferson spoke of our seminal “firm reliance on divine providence”, EVERYBODY knew what he meant. The Westminster confession of Faith. 301 redirect Check Of Providence. The 39 articles of Anglicanism Anglicans Online | The Thirty-Nine Articles Check XVII. Of Predestination and Election.
[/quote]
Though I admit America is a great country – after all it is my homeland – that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have faults. That doesn’t mean there is not another great country. I do not subscribe to nationalism.
Another point, Jefferson did not protest the killing of Christian kings during the French Revolution, as a conservative I find that utmost repulsive.
Moreover, though Anglicans and Presbyterians influenced this country, you’d be lacking if you forgot that the Catholics influenced this great country in the past, as well. I’ll also point out that Anglicans are based off the Catholic Church directly, they were less protestant in the understanding of the reformers and more schismatics in the proper sense.
Just saying.
[quote]TigerTime wrote:<<< Right, so, counting 4 objects can be misleading because my brain could have an error than makes me see additional objects or something, >>>[/quote]No sir. Your brain does not have an error. I am implying no such thing. Your brain, like mine, quite rightly deduces 4 from 2 sets of 2. Why?
[quote]pushharder wrote:<<< The fact that Yosemite Tirib-Sam failed to mention Baptists, Methodists, and others in his “spawning” statement once again exemplifies his ignorance of the history of the colonies/colonists of which he claims to be such an outstanding model.
Edit: yes, I know technically Methodists can be considered offshoots of the Anglicans and even Baptists can as well. Then again, Anglicans and Presbyterians can also be considered offshoots of the RCC too.
The point is I think Tirib earnestly wishes to emphasize the Presbyterian influence because of its Calvinism roots and by doing so is indirectly exhibiting disingenuousness or ignorance.[/quote]And Push would have been swiftly publicly and righteously excommunicated and shunned on the spot by absolutely any one of the churches he mentions, including the Catholic church, but that was then. In hippified whorehouse 21st century America the spiritually emaciated oh so non judgmental “christian” doesn’t even have the basic sanctification to call out a loud unspeakably flagrant whoremonger anymore. Not around here anyway. I fall short all the time in these forums, but there’s a God who knows my heart and the truth of what I speak. That is far greater than good enough for me.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
but there’s a God who knows my heart and the lies of what I speak. That is far greater than good enough for me.
[/quote]
Fixed it for ya…
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
but there’s a God who knows my heart and the lies of what I speak. That is far greater than good enough for me.
[/quote]Fixed it for ya…[/quote]I just know it would be asking way too much for a demonstration of such an accusation from our new dynamic duo here. Posting histories speak for themselves.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
My point was that there’s no such thing as irrefutable, foolproof logic, since logic itself is based on unprovable assumptions.
[/quote]
Yes there is, and no it’s not.
The rest I am fine with, but taking logic itself to task is as a futile endeavour. There are no assumptions in deductive logic, there is only right or wrong, true or false.[/quote]
Logic is only true to the extent that the assumptions of noncontradiction, excluded middle, and identity are true. It is impossible to know these assumptions are actually true (see dialetheism). Logical paradoxes do exist (see the Liar’s paradox and Russell’s paradox), hence there is reason to believe these underlying assumptions do not universally apply.[/quote]
You are over complicating it. A deductive argument is simply an argument form where the conclusion follows directly from it’s conclusions. Non-contraction and excluded middle deal with the unknowns, not the know elements of an argument. Because A doesn’t necessarily preclude B.
If an argument states that the train isn’t coming here, it doesn’t mean it’s stopped.
Statement, or thought paradoxes aren’t a problem unless you system is completely isolated. Even the notion that a statement can be both true and false doesn’t mean that they are both true and false under the same circumstances. Circumstance or context resolves the thought paradoxes and logic doesn’t exist in an isolated vacuum.[/quote]
If the assumption of non-contradiction isn’t true, the conclusions drawn from any premises can’t be definitively proven because the opposite conclusions could also be true. Logic completely depends on these underlying assumptions being true, and if they are not true, we can’t have complete confidence in the conclusions of logic.
Logic tells us what may be true, but nothing can be absolutely, irrefutably proven to be true. Including this statement 
[quote]kamui wrote:
those are not assumptions, but principles.
basic rules. and these basic rules are part of our mental “hardware”.
btw, in itself, logic has nothing to do with true and false, simply because logic doesn’t say anything about the world.
Logic is not factual, but formal.
Logic doesn’t tell us what is true or false, but what is valid and invalid, what’s meaningful and what’s meaningless.
If, for some reason, the underlying principles of logic are not “true”, then meaning itself is an illusion.
but this is a pointless speculation. with ZERO practical consequence.
If it is an illusion, it’s an illusion that can not be corrected nor avoided
We could not even begin to imagine what stand in its place “in reality”. (at least not without using logic)
So, If it’s an illusion, this illusion is still the only reality we got. And we have to live with it.
[/quote]
For an argument to be logically sound, its premises must actually be true. If the premises don’t reflect reality, the conclusions don’t either.
It does have practical consequences, because it informs our world views, which in turn inform our behaviors. Pat believes the cosmological argument is sound, and his behavior reflects this belief.
Moreover, being unable to know anything with absolute certainty doesn’t imply that all arguments are equally likely to be true. We can determine which are more likely to be true than others, despite not having perfect knowledge.
Newton’s deterministic laws were thought to be universal, and for the most part that belief worked well operationally, because Newton’s laws do describe reality in the scale to which we’re accustomed. Quantum mechanics don’t make Newton’s laws useless; they still have practical utility despite being limited in scope.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
I would have gone unnoticed and been considered boring and average in the American colonies.
[/quote]Yes, except the American colonies weren’t exactly the high light of Christian sanctification history. [/quote]When would this high point in history be? I do appreciate that you recognize that I would have been quite average at the time of the revolution. Regardless of where else on the scale of history that period belongs.
Elder Forlife is on an absolute roll on this page. he is doin my work for me. That is actually not a sarcastic statement at all. He is stating precisely the utter futility of autonomous human reason.
[quote]Elder Forlife wrote:<<< Tiribulus makes one mighty assumption, that his god is a real being, and all of his beliefs flow from this seminal assumption.
Pat claims that his beliefs derive from logic, but even if that were indisputably true, logic itself is based on unprovable assumptions (like the assumption of non-contradiction).>>>[/quote]This is absolutely beautiful =]. My hat comes waaay off to this one. You have quite inadvertently, yet ever so rightly discerned that ol Patty here has exalted logic above the throne of God. All my beliefs flow from the triune God of scripture as my self consciously preeminent utterly FIRST all defining principle. Pat (following Aquinas) holds that EVERYTHING including God is subject to logic as the first all defining principle. I hasten to add that he is not to be unduly singled out in this regard. This is the state of self exalted autonomous man. He just happens to be the individual that occasioned for you these very worthwhile posts as right and wrong as they are.
Right in that you have very astutely identified the prison of uncertainty occupied not only by the overt Christ denying unbeliever, but also by the unwitting theist who persists in worshiping a contingent god.
But then wrong in that you steadfastly refuse, because of deadness in sin, to recognize the only remedy. That being a new birth by grace through faith into the very family of the God who alone is altogether non-contingent and hence altogether certain of absolutely everything. Being born into the life of this God and voluntarily surrendering to Him all that one is (in that order) brings with it His certainty derived directly from Him. That CANNOT be seen by anybody for whom it is not already a reality. The apostle Paul said so himself.
Ohhhh Elder Forlife. Not the machinations of men, nor the sword of governments, not the groping hand of my own carnality or the merciless onslaught of the legions of hell can produce in me the faintest odor of doubt. The faithful triumphant conquering king of all that is has sealed me with His Spirit of promise and I will not be moved. I will take every breath including my last in grateful adoring service to my savior who loved me and died for me while I was fully deserving of His eternal wrath. I do pray that you will one day be able to earnestly say the same.
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Your leap of faith is no more likely to reflect reality than anyone else’s leap of faith. That is the definition of faith, after all. None of us has ultimate knowledge of anything, least of all those core fundamental beliefs that are the springboard for our faith.
I see utility in logic and science as tools for understanding truth, but I readily admit they are limited tools at best. At least their objective claims can be reliably observed and replicated, which increases the likelihood that those claims actually reflect reality.
Your claims are far less likely to be true, by contrast, because they cannot be reliably observed and replicated. You can’t rule out the possibility that your faith and devotion are the product of your subconscious emotions, desires, and needs. You can recognize these subconscious self-fulfilling beliefs in others, but are blind to that possibility when it comes to your own beliefs.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
…because it’s logical.
[quote]TigerTime wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
…because it’s logical.[/quote]
Let’s cut to the chase, he’s trying to make you admit God did it. Which is technically true if you eliminate the trillion steps in between. He tries the leading technique with every one. He continually falls into the God of gaps theory. Logic dictates that God of gaps is just not necessary. You can have God with out any gaps.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
but there’s a God who knows my heart and the lies of what I speak. That is far greater than good enough for me.
[/quote]Fixed it for ya…[/quote]I just know it would be asking way too much for a demonstration of such an accusation from our new dynamic duo here. Posting histories speak for themselves.
[/quote]
Yes they do, and if the search engine here were more robust I would be happy to pull up the examples what you did actually say and then your subsequent back tracking. Like I said about 4 times before I have one example memorized, every time I presented it, you just magically disappeared.
So let’s see if you are capable of honesty, for once. Do you deny saying this:
“If there are any Catholics in heaven it is only because of the extreme mercy of God.”
Do you deny this? Or are you going to run away like you usually do?
[quote]TigerTime wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
…because it’s logical.[/quote]
Correct it is a deductive logical argument. All math is. The take 2 of something, and add to more of something is to necessitate that there will be 4 of said somethings.
What you need to realize about math is that numbers are representations, not things in themselves. The symbols we use aren’t numbers themselves, they represent the representations.
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]kamui wrote:
those are not assumptions, but principles.
basic rules. and these basic rules are part of our mental “hardware”.
btw, in itself, logic has nothing to do with true and false, simply because logic doesn’t say anything about the world.
Logic is not factual, but formal.
Logic doesn’t tell us what is true or false, but what is valid and invalid, what’s meaningful and what’s meaningless.
If, for some reason, the underlying principles of logic are not “true”, then meaning itself is an illusion.
but this is a pointless speculation. with ZERO practical consequence.
If it is an illusion, it’s an illusion that can not be corrected nor avoided
We could not even begin to imagine what stand in its place “in reality”. (at least not without using logic)
So, If it’s an illusion, this illusion is still the only reality we got. And we have to live with it.
[/quote]
For an argument to be logically sound, its premises must actually be true. If the premises don’t reflect reality, the conclusions don’t either.
[/quote]
Correct.
It is logically sound. Very logically sound. Belief is irrelevant.
Absolute certainty is a problem for science and other empiricism. Deductive arguments are either true or false. But if false, doesn’t mean the opposite is true, it just means the stated argument is either true or false…
[quote]
Newton’s deterministic laws were thought to be universal, and for the most part that belief worked well operationally, because Newton’s laws do describe reality in the scale to which we’re accustomed. Quantum mechanics don’t make Newton’s laws useless; they still have practical utility despite being limited in scope.[/quote]
Actually they give insight into Newton’s laws and like I said is an empirical problem. Science cannot make deductive conclusions because it cannot control all the variables.
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:
My point was that there’s no such thing as irrefutable, foolproof logic, since logic itself is based on unprovable assumptions.
[/quote]
Yes there is, and no it’s not.
The rest I am fine with, but taking logic itself to task is as a futile endeavour. There are no assumptions in deductive logic, there is only right or wrong, true or false.[/quote]
Logic is only true to the extent that the assumptions of noncontradiction, excluded middle, and identity are true. It is impossible to know these assumptions are actually true (see dialetheism). Logical paradoxes do exist (see the Liar’s paradox and Russell’s paradox), hence there is reason to believe these underlying assumptions do not universally apply.[/quote]
You are over complicating it. A deductive argument is simply an argument form where the conclusion follows directly from it’s conclusions. Non-contraction and excluded middle deal with the unknowns, not the know elements of an argument. Because A doesn’t necessarily preclude B.
If an argument states that the train isn’t coming here, it doesn’t mean it’s stopped.
Statement, or thought paradoxes aren’t a problem unless you system is completely isolated. Even the notion that a statement can be both true and false doesn’t mean that they are both true and false under the same circumstances. Circumstance or context resolves the thought paradoxes and logic doesn’t exist in an isolated vacuum.[/quote]
If the assumption of non-contradiction isn’t true, the conclusions drawn from any premises can’t be definitively proven because the opposite conclusions could also be true. Logic completely depends on these underlying assumptions being true, and if they are not true, we can’t have complete confidence in the conclusions of logic.
Logic tells us what may be true, but nothing can be absolutely, irrefutably proven to be true. Including this statement :)[/quote]
The law of non-contradiction applies in isolation. If you change external variables then the problem goes away.
If I say “You are standing inside the doorway.” I cannnot alone prove that is true and I could say you are standing outside he door way too. However, If I say “When I am outside you appear to be standing in the door way” and if I am inside I can say you are standing outside the door way, both statements are true, even if they contradict one another. They are true based on external variables.