The problem with Christian Bob here is that you folks have fundamentally backed him into a corner of sorts. From a metaphysical standpoint, his entire paradigm collapses if he concedes to consider that his core axioms, both regarding what he believes and what you believe, are wrong. Psychologically, this engages the fight-or-flight reflex which leads him to both ignore your main points while grasping for whatever bit of sophistry he can find to simply dismiss your arguments without more than a superficial consideration of the points you raise. It shows throughout this entire thread.

Graciously ceding validity to Bob’s arguments proves deism at the very best. Sadly, such is the very best that Christians can do when they attempt to wrestle with these questions in the most intellectually honest manner they can muster. Bob can only argue that, from within his paradigm, you have no grounds for rationality — he cannot address the fact that despite his point of view you are nonetheless rational and have reasons for this outside of what he is willing to accept. The Christian apologist cannot accept people or things as they are, along with their reasons for being so, but instead must twist them to conform to their theology. When contradictions are met, they must explain away those contradictions as being the fault of who or what they are trying to explain rather than the fault of the actual philosophical approach they espouse. The essence of God is the only conceivable basis for rationality within Bob’s paradigm and thus, within his paradigm, it is absolutely inconceivable that one could reject God and still have a basis for being rational. It never occurs to one such as this that the actual problem might be with the paradigm itself and not the one with whom the matter is being argued. What exists is invariably ignored in favor of what ought or ought not to exist.

Bob should not be blamed for this. Bob is the product of thousands upon thousands of years of biological, human, and societal evolution. The human mind has evolved in such a manner that, from the moment we are born, we begin to make connections regarding the world around us, forming relationships between objects and ideas. Throughout this formative process we almost never question the external factors that condition the assumptions we make as we piece together what is to become our overall paradigm as to how the world works. As far as we are concerned, it is just “the way things are.” We have evolved in such a manner that, when someone or something causes us to question the fundamental assumptions we take for granted, our survival instincts kick in and we resort to any and all sorts of argumentation, however dishonest, to ensure that they are not knocked out of place. Our views can only change to embrace a wider view of the world when we, of our own free will and accord, step back and critically examine our basic assumptions… and even then it’s hardly “easy.”

At any rate, I thank you all for the interesting read and I thank Normal Bob for his fascinating website.

There’s only two ways out of a circular argument: either #1- discard it altogether, or #2- find outside, convincing evidence to support it. — There’s no #3- make it true by confusing its detractors, nor is there a #4- convince everyone to buy into it before #2 so it doesn’t need to be proven anymore. Thinking of it, I’m not even sure that #2 is an option for people trapped inside of one. And I don’t want to be rude, but of what use are all these words if in the end they don’t address the problem of material evidence? The words you use keep pointing to nothing. I’m saying it again, my view of this is that you’re on a fool’s errand. You’ve bought into something that I cannot see how you’d prove, or else it would have long been proven already. There’s even a sort of ridicule to the mere need of arguing – and at such a level – in favor of such a grandiose claim. Molière would have liked you a lot.

To think it could be so simple: your God appears, he does his godly thing, he confirms that the Bible, despite its two parts separated by centuries, its various and often anonymous authors, indirect witnesses, pages and pages of irrelevant details, accounts of horrific acts and requests, descriptions of supernatural occurrings with ‘possible’ metaphorical interpretations, overall scientific poverty, the propaganda in favor of a chosen people, the lengthy and dubious process of putting it together while rejecting some other parts (though still including the occasional forgeries), the various schisms of the Church throughout the history of the Christian religion, the awful deeds it has prompted to commit with no divine intervention to stop them, the countless translations, a total absence of a myriad of things that make our daily lives, as well as some perplexing similarities and conflicts with competing religions from both past and present and the blackmailing ways of its ultimate author, is still nevertheless pretty much what he said, and I’m convinced – after making sure it wasn’t all just an elaborate trick, of course. As to if I’ll worship him or not after that is a whole other matter.

He supposedly did so in the past, and I say all he needs to do is to do it again. This should be no big deal for such as him. Or is it that he might be afraid that the people today are not as ignorant and credulous as those who first saw him? Or that it’d put a lot of people out of business?

“faith is a gift from God” comes from Ephesians 2:8-9 in the New Testament. Look it up.

I’m not trying to convince you that I’m using intelligent arguments. I’m trying to convince you that you, Steve, have the faith in certain authoritative principles. As you said, faith is irrational - but I think you would qualify the way in which you have faith in such principles. A philosophical starting point must be self-attesting. It must rest on its own authority, otherwise its not a starting point, but only what it rests upon is. I’m trying to get at your starting point, what I’ve also called your foundation. I have foundations, you have foundations. We all do.

How do we test such starting points/foundations? The method I’ve proposed is that we see which foundation makes sense, accounts for, the most knowledge and life experience. For instance, we both think the scientific method is a good thing. Which starting point allows for it to philosophical function as a discipline? I think atheistic naturalism disallows the scientific method the necessary assumptions that must be in place for such a method to be valuable on its own terms. Instead, I believe the Christian doctrine of Creation, revelation, and providence lay the foundation for the metaphysical postulates that allow for the scientific method. I can demonstrate this.

Why not Islam? Because their metaphysic leads back to a fundemental monism. Thier ultimate reality (allah, their God), is a single entity, which cannot account for the equal ultimacy of uniformity and particularity in the universe. Ok, I realize that I just said a lot, but at least know that I am aware Islam, and cognizant about why I am not a muslim. Their religion has no real doctrine of revelation, no doctrine of God’s condescension, no doctrine of redemption, no doctrine of the Trinity. The last doctrine is fundemental to my particular philosophical outlook. I would be consistent to abandon all my hopes in philosophy if I did not believe in the Trinity.

Praying Atheist: You wrote, “As much as you want this to be a “God or no God” dichotomy this is just not the case.” EXACTLY! WOOO HOO!! YES!! I realize you do not believe in a god espoused by an organized religion. But you do have a God! Your God is your self, or perhaps it is the natural universe. Nonetheless, you God is whatever is ultimate, authoritative, that which you obey, that which you worship. What I must press upon is that you believe that truth is derived from yourself and the world. This is a classic mix of enlightenment epistemology.

I gots to get back to work!

The word faith is equal to irrationality, I doubt seriously that you have enough faith to believe in the Muslim religion, but yet you have enough faith to believe in the religion that you yourself choose to believe in, Yet billions of people have more faith in the Muslim religion than the Protestant religion, why is that?

As soon as you mentioned the word faith is a gift from god, your whole argument flew out the window!

“Faith is a gift from god”…prove it!!!

If you had as much faith as a mustard seed, you could move a mustard seed, yet it has never been done, therefore the word faith used in religious beliefs, is a total farce!

No, atheists don’t have any such ultimate, immutable foundation (even yours is not: slavery has since been abolished), and that’s because we feel that humanity probably can’t ever get to that point. Metaphysic-wise, this is where we atheists stand: we just can’t be absolutely certain, and so we better not start acting as if we are. — So, sorry but no, we (or at least I) have no “ultimate paradigm” for you to feel good debunking. What we (atheists, humans) can do, however, is to doubt those who do, those who claim they ‘do’ know. You did that too if you ever argued with a Muslim. But have you ever even met one? Or a Hindu? Or a Sikh? Because as of today, friend, over 4 billion people have yet to adhere to your “ultimate foundation” – and that’s assuming that each and every one of the Christians on the planet, no matter what their denomination, are in absolute perfect agreement with everything you hold for truth.

As much as you want this to be a “God or no God” dichotomy, this is just not the case. What we have instead is “Your God” vs “This other guy’s god” vs “this guy’s many gods” vs “definitely no God or gods” vs “I don’t have a clue, but I’m not about to believe any of you guys.”

If you really could stand from an atheist’s point of view, instead of building straw man arguments (“science is a dogma”, “hypothesizes are dogmatic claims”, I’m “rebelling against God”, right), you would see that there is simply nothing to differentiate the Bible from the Talmud, the Koran, or the Guru Granth Sahib, or any other sacred book from any other monotheistic religion that we humans have come up with. Thinking of it, why should we dismiss right away all polytheistic religions – like Hinduism and its Vedas, for example? They may even make more sense than the monotheistic ones. Who’s to say that the universe is not simply the working end-result of two or many different – often clashing – components? But anyway, for better comparison purposes, let’s stick with the monotheistic ones.

All those monotheistic religions’ sacred book can be used in a circular argument to falsely “prove” that not only does a god exist, but that ‘he’ is also the source of this or that book, and not of the others. Like I said, if you really could stand from an atheist’s point of view, you would see that it’s legitimate in this case to expect something more before agreeing that yes, one of those books is indeed more ‘special’ than the others.

You feel very secure within the imaginary walls of your imaginary fortress, but in reality, all you’ve done is to check “Win” for your circular argument, when “Fail” was the proper answer – because this is one of the worst ways to search for truth. In fact, using that as a basis for inquiry is not searching for truth at all; it’s searching for ways to fool others into thinking like yourself, regardless of the truth. — In a way, with your flamboyant words, what you’ve done is you’ve dressed a monkey with the emperor’s clothes, and now not only are you trying to sell me that it is my master (whose story and commands are conveniently recorded in a book), but you are also saying that I’m rebelling against this monkey because I refuse to believe you and to obey the book. And that’s assuming there even was an emperor in the first place (or any other authority figure – clothes or no clothes), and that the first religious leaders were not trying to make one up to strengthen their own authority. Oh, and now look! Here’s another guy with another monkey-emperor and another book, and he says he’s going to kill me if I don’t believe him! That’s sure to make him right any which way.

Seriously now, I hope you understand why I prefer to remain a skeptic: this is so I don’t have to accept every claim that is thrown at me, especially two contradictory ones at the same time with no outside evidence whatsoever to support them. And don’t think for a second that you are impervious to this. Claims you find suspect can very well come from people you thought were your peers in convictions, when you find yourself disagreeing with them over this or that part of the Bible.

I’m sorry, but I fail to see how you could prove either God or the Bible using mere words, no matter how good you are with them. Looks like a fool’s errand to me.

Here is something you said that is quite consistent, “The point is, Bob, if I do, or DO NOT, have a ‘foundation for my critique’ of Christianity, that still has nothing to do with whether or not the bible is true. NOTHING.” It has everything to do with whether you can know if it is true or not, but you are right, it doesn’t get at whether it is true in actuality. I’m affraid, that question cannot be addressed until we have mutually affirmed standards, authorities, and laws. This we do not have.

Here is why you should believe in the God of the Bible as he has revealed himself therein:

The God of Scripture is the God you know. You presuppose his ultimate existence in order to live your life, do your science, reason with your logic. If God didn’t exist, if you didn’t know him, you would not think that these areas would have any worth, any lasting value. But you do, and the only explanation is the existence of God.

But you, Martan, like the rest of us, are a sinner, a covenant breaker, in rebellion against God. You borrow philosophical capital that can only exist in a Christian paradigm and cannot exist in an atheist paradigm, but deny the very God that such philosophical capital necessarily assumes.

The evidence that the God of Scripture exists is your belief in logic, science, and morality. Why? Because He is the only foundation for such benefits. Every philosophical system that has tried to lay a groundwork for laws of logic and science has failed. Name one! I’ve studied this somewhat, and I think I can demonstrate that none of them attain objectivity or truth. They have failed for two reasons, 1) they picked the wrong dogmas to believe in at the outset, 2) they refuse to be dogmatic at all, which is folly because everyone is dogmatic.

A point I have NormalBob: We both accuse the other of supressing truth. I think I can back up my claim that you are supressing truth because you keep on believing in truth but deny the necessary preconditions for such truth. I affirm the metaphysical preconditions for truth, and I also believe in truth. Theological truth, logical truth, scientific truth, moral truth. I would have none of these if I dispatched my beliefe in God as a Creator and Redeemer in Christ.

Faith, Martan, is a gift from God. I do not believe you have the ability to carry it out. Your rebellion, just like mine, runs too deep - philosophically deep even. But, if you want to have faith, if you want to know God - ask Him for faith. The apostles in the New Testament promise that God will not deny you. 1st John says, “If you confess your sins he is faithful and just to forgive them.” Such faith will provide you with the kind of philosophical consistancy I’ve been advocating. More than that, it will afford a right relationship with a God who you have rebeled against. Not only is my God the ultimate precondition for human rationality, he is a God of mercy who welcomes sinners back. This, for me, is where my heart and my mind meet.

Aristotle believed in being as ultimate, Descarte named his selfhood as the incorrigable, Kant had his sythetic categories. Each system has failed (although, I must admit, I have a deep respect for Aristotle). The ultimate they each were looking for is God, the Christian God who has revealed himself in Christ, attested by the Holy Spirit in the Bible. Be an Aristotlelean, be Cartesian, be Kantian - we’ll see if the system works out, and I’ll demonstrate to the best of my ability that one must presuppose Christian theism at the outset in order to attain the results these great men were after.

Bob

Answers to your reasons for not believing in the Bible:

1,2,3,7) Adam and Eve, talking snakes, Noah’s ark, God’s eternity. Whether you think this is rational or not is beside the point. The point is that you have no foundation for rationality. So what you deem irrational is arbitrary because objective reality, as you believe, is irrational because it is chaotic.

4) The bible does not claim the earth is 6,000 years old. Even if it did, you would have no objective way to prove that it isn’t.

5) Those names (John, James, etc) are English translations of Hebrew and Greek names.

6) The Greek pantheon is not philosophically consistent. I would heartily agree with you that their existence does not lay the groundwork for logic, science, and morality. I would claim, however, that the Christian God of the Old and New Testaments does lay such groundwork.

8) To answer why God exists would necessitate a more ultimate being than God in order to explain how he was caused. God is ultimate in my worldview so there is no such explanation. There logically cannot be such a higher ultimate without essentially altering my conception of God, making the question itself incoherent.

9) Evil does not exist unless there is an ultimate personal Good. To affirm that evil exists is to affirm that an ultimate personal Good also exists. Even to say evil exists begs the question on how morality exists without God. My point has been, it cannot exist without God.

10,11,12) “I KNOW that if I was in charge, I could have designed a much better system…” You have no philosophy to back up your use of the word “better.” All you have is your own standards. Thus, we are back to, paraphrase, “God doesn’t exist because I don’t like him.” Try setting up an ultimate standard, law, or authority by which to judge God. Then justify the existence and knowability of such a standard. Then your critique will have some weight.

11, 13) What shall I call this? An argument from curiosity? The death of animals is not inherently contradictory with the existence of God. This is quite a reach here.

14) This is not an argument. Those people misinterpreted Scripture. That fact is irrelevant as to the validity of Christian theistic claims.

This gets us back to the original issue. You have no ultimate foundation in order to reject an ultimate claim such as my Theistic claim. If you have no such ultimate foundation, then you cannot say anything relevant in this discussion. All you have are personal sentiments. Try demonstrating how my worldview is self-referentially incoherent. That’s my tack with you fellows, one that I think is far more demonstrative of your utter philosophical poverty.

You see, I am standing from your point of view. I’m just standing in a more consistent manner. If I was an atheist I would admit that I have ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO AFFIRM OR DENY ANYTHING. This is philosophically consistent. But I know that you guys cannot be consistent because you actually know your Creator, but are driving yourself to these absurdities in order to avoid Him. So, be consistent and disavow yourself of any objectivity, rational, or knowledge. Or, set up an ultimate paradigm and we’ll see how it works out.

Bob

I have bigger fish to fry like my education. I’m not directly trying to convert you here. I’m trying to get you guys to think a little more deeply about the issues.

Martan wrote: “The universe does NOT have order. It has chaos.” He was not talking about his own categories, he was talking about the natural world. If it is chaotic, it is lawless.

You have every right to believe in whatever authority you want, especially as I assume we’re both American Citizens. But you have to be philosophically consistent with your authoritative starting point. It is such consistency that I have been pleading for.

“betterment requires and ideal.” In your example, you used the word “bad” and “better.” Both words are completely relative without an ideal. If they are relative, they cannot be utilized to describe progress, which is inherently non-relative. So, stick with their relativity and reliquish progress, or keep progress and defend an objective ideal. Your choice!

The problem with your charge is that you do not accept my methodology for defining God - nor, because he is ultimate in my system, am I able to prove him by something more ultimate (authoritative). My God is the Trinitarian God of the Old and New Testaments of Scripture who has revealed Himself in Christ. Obviously I’ve gathered this description of Scripture, which is my source and norm for predications about God. This is a closed system I’m working with. I believe all systems are closed. The test is, which accounts for laws of logic, science, and morality? I believe Christianity exclusivly accounts for these things.

On your last point: my purpose is to show that without presupposing God the scientific method doesn’t account for its assumptions. I take the existence of God revealing himself in the world as a philosophically basic statement. It doesn’t have to be proved because, as basic, it is the necessary presupposition of proof itself. Thus, just because I cannot scientifically prove the existence of God, I can make an argument that God is the necessary presupposition for proof. Like all scientists, I take the axiom “a science cannot prove its principles.” as valid.

So I can affirm science as it is upheld by more basic metaphysical claims (Christian theism). Those metaphysical claims are authoritative in my system and therefore cannot be proven or unproven by the scientific method. Why? because the method depends on such metaphysical claims. To disprove the metaphysics is to disprove the method. I’ve been asking you guys over and over for what your metaphysical claims are, and you’ve flip floped each time.

“I have bigger fish to fry.”
- Come on, I mean, our souls are at stake here.

“Martan spoke of the universe in chaos, then a few sentences later talked about scientific proof. Huh? How can there be proof with chaotic data?”
- The universe is chaotic according to our definitions and our yearning for purpose and control, but its physical laws are consistent, so we can rely on them for some measure of order.

“He talked about how he was his own authority, then he lives by the authority of natural science.”
- All that means is that he lives by an authority – or authorities – of his own choosing. You – and other believers – seem very intent on depriving us of this right.

“Betterment requires an ideal.”
- Not necessarily. Ex.: you can choose between two things and realize only later that you picked the bad one. You can better yourself by admitting you were wrong and correcting your error.

I really don’t see how we have “missed the point.” In the end, you’re the one claiming to follow an absolute authority – and yet you cannot even begin to define it, let alone prove its existence. Now I don’t know if you just don’t get it, but no one claimed that science is an ‘absolute’ authority: it’s only a tool we use to better understand and shape our world. Believers like yourself, on the other hand, do claim to have the final answer to everything. As one of them, your task is simple: define God and prove his existence. I pointed out the fact that you imperatively need your Bible to do this, which led us to our second point of contention: Is the Bible really the word of God?

I proposed the scientific method to verify this, and, of course, since you know full well it already leads to conclusions you don’t like, you said it’s invalid:

“…you asked me to “scientifically prove” that the Bible is the word of God. Well, how is something proven to be true? Can you prove that method to be true based upon the very standards of the method? No, you cannot.”

Well, even if we were to agree on this, for the sake of this argument, all that would mean is that we can’t yet verify this claim, and that we have to search for the one ‘true’ method. Since you are so well-versed in logical argumentation, how can you not see that the reasonable position in such a case is to doubt the veracity of the claim? You can argue this all you want, but believing things for which there is insufficient evidence ‘is’ unreasonable. This has nothing to do with opinions.

Oh, and by the way, since you’re so quick to point out contradictions, – real or imagined, – I’d like to point out that you actually said elsewhere that the scientific method is in fact valid:

“As a Christian, I can answer that yes, I have a reason to believe in the uniformity of nature, that scientific experiments will be regular and repeatable at all times and places. Why? Because I have a Doctrine of Creation wherein God creates the world in a uniform and regular manner. Season in and season out. Such a doctrine supplies a FOUNDATION upon which I can rationalize a method of inquiry that looks to regularity and repeatability as signs of scientific veracity.”

This is so great, because not only are you agreeing that the scientific method is valid, but you’re saying that it is because of God himself. So you really should have no problem proving his existence (and the authenticity of the Bible) using the very method that he himself has made so reliable.

Atheist named Jeff - Betterment requires an ideal. Tell me how it doesn’t. Actually, don’t. I really cannot spend time anymore talking about this with you guys.

Well, this has ended in name calling. The entropy of philosphical and theological reflection to the point of mockery and insult. The people on the video quoted Plato, you guys now refer to science as an invincible army, and say you’re still not being religious. Yikes. Evolution? No, devolution.