Atheists Hide in the Gap 3 (final)

 
 the Bridge to the gap in the leap of faith



 What we have seen so far is that there is a move I call "hiding in the gap" where the atheist says "O there's a gap, since there's a gap God can't be proven, therefore, I cannot be forced by logic to believe in God because you can't provide evidence that is so overwhelming I can't doubt it. As long as there is a gap in knowledge I will refuse to leap it. this is couched in terms of "if I do this it will be irrational because only absolute proof is rational." Most of them backpedal when it's put this way and even then they demand "absolute" proof. Yet is it the abstention of the absolute aspect of Christian evidence  they always rest upon; which is basically what hiding the gap is.

Here are some more examples form that thread:


Originally Posted by Darwin's Duchshund

Meta long time no see & all that (metaphorically, of course) It's great to see that you're still starting your posts with unsupported premises;

Meta:

Good to "see" you too. No I'm basing them on previously documented premises.One must repeat oneself so often in these threads it's just too much.

DD:

Maybe in your field this happens, but if you were at all familiar with scientific writing, you'd understand that they are tediously boring due to the authors being specific about what they don't know, and then making sure that their conclusions don't extend beyond what is supported by evidence. 

 Meta:

I am very familiar with scientific writing. I studied science in history of ideas. history and Philosophy of scinece. We had to read science. The problem is there's a huge difference in atheist gibbering and using scinece as a shill for their ideology, and real science. Real scinece is not atheism (did you know that?).

DD:

No. Not really. If you know there is a gap in your knowledge, it is to be quantified and worked around. 

 Meta:

NO, no no no, that is modernist bull! That's assuming, as you are, that science is the only form of knowledge. Science is not the only form of knowledge. I know many things you don't know because I study other forms of knowledge. You don't know them but I do. So I use them.

It's foolish to suggest that all gaps can be quantified. Epistemological gaps clearly cannot be quantified if they could be they would not be epistemic gaps. You are using a ploy that scietism uses all the time to create the illusion that science is the only way. you set up requirement that fits what you do and anything that does it that requirement is just ignored as though it doesn't exist. then you go around saying 'this doesn't exist because it doesn't fit my little understanding." But that's because your understanding is too little.

DD:

Take gravity. What we know about gravity can be quantified. What we don't know about gravity can be identified. 

 Meta:

Actually you are not saying anything. that is nonsense sentence. Why? Because I can say that about God. I can quantify all the things about God that can be quantified. What can't be quantified I can define. so that' s not really saying anything to brag about is it?

Things that can be quantified about God:

how much of all things did God create? 100%

what percentage of God can we pin down to empriical proof? 0%

That pretty much defines everything. (why do we need more than that?)

These guys don't seem to have a proportions. They want to know the quantification of everything because they can only think  in terms of surface existence of things in the world, that's why they want to exclude God from reality, becasue they can't control him because they can't quantify him. There's really no reason to want to quantify things about God. The only reason to quantify is to control, either though manipulating or through understanding. We can't understand God, God is beyond us and will always be beyond us. We can't even understand being let alone our own conscoiusness. We can't understand our own desires. We can't quantify the meaning of life. What would that do for us anyway? The idea that knowledge = control, their desire to scientize all knowledge is to control is so totally new to them they can't even think about it. It just rolls off their minds like water off a duck's back.

Meta:

You are also constructing metaphysics. Under the guise of scinece you are actually doing metaphysics. Science is the understanding of the working of the physical world only, nothing else! you are preprocessed to understand all reality though your lens of reductionism. That's easy when you just saw off all that you don't know. Hey I don't nothing so there's nothing out there. that was easy.

DD:

You can be guaranteed that when you step onto an aircraft designed by an engineer, there is no "faith" involved in the physics that are used to make the aircraft overcome gravity. 

 Meta:

That's a red herring. it's not epistemic question, not a metaphysical question, not an ontological and it's within the domain of the workings of the physical world. As a theologian i don't need to understand aircraft. But through your aircraft (my father was an air craft engineer so I do understand them pretty well) you pretend to prove something about the larger reality but you are not.

DD:

None. No guessing, no "gaps". We can be 100% certain that gravity will always act the same way with respect to the aircraft. 

 They are always trying to make a competition between God and sometihng they can quantify. Like in this he thinks we can quantify air craft and we know what we are doing, therefore, this is solid but God isn't." It's not a matter of if I believe in air craft then I can't believe in God. I can believe in both. Air craft is not in the same magisteria as is God.

Meta:

That's fine because you are dealing an empirical topic. Notice also it's not very sophisticated. It's rather boring and its' about the concrete. It has nothing to do with the kinds of issues that God talk gets us up to. Moreover, there are gaps. Those gaps are epistemological gaps. as a scientist you are not qualified to deal with epistemology. You can only do that as a philosopher. So you have step outside of scinece just to learn what the gaps in science are. The most banal use of scinece doesn't have too many gaps they are trivial.

For example we don't know what gravity is. You assert that because we can quantify it (inverse square law ala the delusional mixed up Christian idiot Issac Newton) but we still don't know what it is. Most atheists don't realize Newton said it was an occult (hidden) property. there are still several theories about it including that it doesn't exist at all. Newton's private answer as that gravity is the mind of God. The universe is God's sensorium and God works action at a distance by thinking about it.

That old Newton he held back society by belief in God.

There is uncertainty about whether gravity always acts in the same way and what causes it (those pesky little issues that Einstein bleated on about..), but none with respect to the aircraft.

This is exactly what I predicted you would do. you minimize the importance of a gap when it's a gap in your ideological landscape. You maximize the importance of a gap in religious landscape. You are hiding in the gap. You are making as though the gap of no importance when it's about your world view, it's all important when it's about my world view. What you are actually saying is, because there' a gap we can't dare to make a leap of faith. That's hiding in the gap.

DD:

When they restart the LHC next year, and start sending 7TeV particles smashing into one another, you'll be glad to know that they used physical facts rather than faith to design the machine, otherwise we all might not be here to have these engaging discussions.

LHC does not compete with God for my belief.


Meta:

that's a red herring again. You guys sure love to argue by red herring. It is nether here nor there that there aspects of certainty. They are no in the right places. We need the certainty in the gap, so it wont be a gap, but the certainty is not in the gap because if it was it wouldn't be a gap would it? The problem is you are not honest about where the gaps are in your world view. You seem to use this bait and switch tactic. You think if you can switch a gap for a certainty then you somehow divert attention from the fact that your view has gaps.

Maybe that's hiding in the gap in terms of God belief, the God gap, it's hypocritical use of atheist gaps becuase you try to pretend they aren't there or they aren't important. The fact of it is, the gaps don't prevent leap of faith form paying off. Leap of faith pays off in religious terms it pays off epistemological.

What I mean is the 200 studies prove religious experience is transformative. You will never have that transformation power by sitting around quibbling with every aspect of religion and refusing to consider it in a positive light. When you make the leap of faith you can have it. It works. The leap of faith is rewarded with the positive effects of faith.

Another poster:


Originally Posted by Whatsisface

Meta, I have asked you for evidence and you have given me anecdote. How do you know the doctors were right, or, that your fathers recovery was not due to some natural phenomenom?

 Meta:

That's a silly question. You want to assert the all knowing nature of scinece, at least the certainty involved in scinece, absolute minimal gap right? Then when scinece says "this is the fact" you say "how do you know?" how do I know the medical wherewithal of a large metropolitan hospital was smart enough to recognize an abnormal come back by an 89 year old man was dead fo 11 minutes.

think bout it. if I can't trust this hospital to tell me that coming back form dead after 11 minutes and coming back stronger than a man of his age and mistrial should, is abnormal and amazing what am I paying them thousands of dollars for?

A reference to my father's experience on Christmas eve 1998 when he died for 11 minuets then came back to life. Contrary to atheist belief people do die and come back a lot. That in itself is not a big deal although they are usually dead only under two minutes. Eleven minutes is pretty long. Even that is not the real miracle. The doctor said "I have never used the term miracle of my practice before but this is a miracle." The eleven minute gap was part of it but what really astounded him was an 89 year old man with extreme heart arrhythmia coming back with a strong rhythmic heart beat that was holding up around going strong the next day. In this words, "people in his condition at his age just don't do that."

Meta:

If your father was in that condition would you set him on the curb on the grounds maybe maybe the doctor is wrong and he's not really sic, .O that's real reason. you aer so good at this reason thing.

then to claim that I'm giving you an anecdote. yea. and 200 empirical studies in academic journals. you conveniently ignore those and complain about the anecdote.

I also gave you Charles Ann's lungs, which are proved xrays. one of them there x-ray anecdotes. The Lourdes committee is a huge medical establishment with top experts from all over Europe and the best medical diagnostic evidence that is not anecdotal.

Originally Posted by crocoduck

Why do you think that it takes evidence to believe in something?

I don't. It takes evidence to prove your belief.

If that were true, then every belief system and every religion is valid. People can obviously have unjustified faith, don’t you agree? 

 Meta:

Every religious tradition is valid, or almost every one. You are doing the scientism bit again. Science doesn't cancel personal belief. Personal bleief is existential it's more basic than scinece and has to do with self worth and identity and a bunch of issues that scinece can't even touch. You atheists want to use scinece as metaphysics, religion, psychology, you want it to replace all forms of life.

Existential: rooted in the meaning of existence. A first person understanding of the meaning of one's own existence as validated by one's response to life. They can't cope with the existential because it defies their control. They do not reduce all knowledge to scinece because they think that is freedom, they do it because they want to control reality. They want to define an control reality by being the gate keepers of knowledge. They must control what people understand as knowledge first. They construct a priesthood of knowledge which one can only join by their method and their reduction of everything to what they know. These are not the ravings of some conspiratorial lunatic, this is the work of C Wright Mills, one of the major sociologists of the 20th century. (see The Sociological Imagination). (online version of chapter one) (on Amazon)



Mills


Meta:

Do you need a science study to prove your mother loves you?

Crockoduck:

People have faith because they have hope. It comforts them. How many people have faith that they will win the lottery, and so spend all their spare money on lottery tickets? Do they have a reason to believe this? How many people have faith that praying will cure their kids cancer, only to find out it didn’t. Have you ever watched American Idol, and wondered how come so many terrible singers have faith that they will be the next American Idol? People can convince themselves of anything.

Meta:

that is not a valid argument. you say first of all faith must be wrong because it can be misplaced. Don't misplace it. that' the real answer not don't have it. you also speak of hope but to you hope is bad thing its something that doesn't come through that's anti-human. You can't be a humanist and not believe in hope.Hope os one of the unique things that makes us human. Animals don't hope. We do. it's human. Hope need not be misplaced you can hope in the right thing. Lottery tickets are not a good replacement for God.

Crockoduck:

It’s usually evidence of self-delusion. 

 Notice how many non religious examples he gave!

Meta:

I have 200 studies that prove it's not. When the evidence against you is scientific and empirical suddenly scinece is not good anymore. Where's all your guilt by association now?

That's all just hiding in the gaps anyway because all he's saying is "there's a gap, I have an excuse not to try because it's a gap."

Originally Posted by Donald View Post

Your claims about the inner state of MY mind are wrong. There is no need for me to elaborate, since you have no means of obtaining the knowledge you claim to possess. As such, your claims are necessarily unfounded assertions.

As for the rest, I have no reason to believe that my "heart" can provide me with reliable information regarding external reality. Even if it could, there is NOTHING in my mind- the rational part, or the "heart"- which is suggesting to me that any God exists.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Wright_Mills

Meta:

why would it be otherwise when the thing we are talking about is renovation of the heart? God wants you to seek him in the heart. When God accesses your guilt of sin he look at your heart. When he forgives you its' based upon your change in heart. why would the proof be anywhere else?

And the gap in my mind between the reasons for belief (be it empirical evidence, subjective "heart" impressions, logic, or otherwise) and rational warrant is at least as wide for God as it is for Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, fairies, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And you are in no position to claim otherwise.

ok so show me the scientific data that proves how the universe came to be?
show the scientific that proves you exist.

show me the data that proves that the data is not an illusion and you are not being fooled?

why are you willing to make a hundred leaps of faith on everything else epistemological and metaphysical and even scientific, but not this?

anotehr poster, our old buddy
paradoxical says:

Meta, I'm interested in this "heart" thing that you mention. Everyone has a physical one, so what other type heart are you referring to? I could flippantly say that my "heart" tells me there is no bible God, and I'd be correct. What really irks me about Christians is that you think you have found something that only a Christian can know, and you use stupid euphemisms like "heart", which means absolutely nothing. It's just a way of copping out and admitting you have absolutely NO proof of what you say, and non believers don't see it because you have higher perceptions than they do, and you found it in your "heart". This is just mindless blabber spewed out by someone over educated in religion. 

 Should have ask him if he's ever heard of Valatine's day. He talks like he's never heard of the heart. Then part of the time he seems to imply that the problem is Christians think the heart is exclusively there's. His rejection of the concept as though it's some kind of mindless BS is just indicative of the illiterate and unthoughtful nature of atheism and scinetism in general. This is what comes of reducing everything to scinece, and to aspects of science they know and can control, they have lost touch with the basic aspects of being human.


 Far from thinking that the heart is the exclusive domain of Christianity, I think it's universality among humans, its reflection in all world literature, all poetry, Valentine's day, the profusion of metaphors about it (I quoted in the thread a long list of  definitions--websters--that show the concept of heart being used in a wide verity of things, but it mainly is presence in all world literatuer and all faiths, these things confirm the meaningful nature of the metaphor.

Websters on line

: the emotional or moral as distinguished from the intellectual nature: as a : generous disposition : compassion heart> b : love, affection heart> c : courage, ardor heart>

5

: one's innermost character, feelings, or inclinations heart> heart>

6

a : the central or innermost part : center b : the essential or most vital part of something c : the younger central compact part of a leafy rosette (as a head of lettuce)

— at heart

: in essence : basically, essentially

— by heart

: by rote or from memory

— to heart

: with deep concern

Paradoxical says:

You are over educated and over consumed with making your God true, meta. Because he's true in your head, you think others just don't get what you do, and everyone else is wrong, and you're the only one who can be right. I think someone can reach a point where he knows everything there is about world religions, and reaches a point where he thinks he knows it all, but really knows very little about basic common sense and SIMPLE logic.

 This is typical. One minute they are telling me I lied about going to graduate school and someone who spells like I do can't be educated then they say I'm over educated. But his also a  contradiction becasue he rejects the concept of the heart because ti's too tender minded, he want's hard minded rationality, but then the also rejects argument that beat him on the tough minded basis becuase it' over educated.

Paradoxical:

You live too much in your head, Meta, where your personal God resides. Your God is different than everyone elses, but you think you found the right one. If it works for you, fine. But, I assure you that yo9u, and you alone, do NOT hold the keys to ultimate wisdom.

Notice how anti-intellectual they start to become when you show the hollow nature of their position. Before they are saying the heart is stupid you should be in your head, the right people are the who are rational, anything not about rationality is meaningless. Now he says I think too much, too much in my head. Well where else is there if not the heart?

Paradoxical:

Without a doubt, you are well versed in religion. Probably more so than most others, and I dare say, even Matt Slick. What does that mean? it means you have a lot of education about religion, and that's it. I don't want to offend anyone, but since you contended that the atheists here aren't that well educated, I have to tell you that tgheir posts are far more enlightening and reasoned than yours, or ANY other Christian poster here.

That's as imbecilic as you can get. My major as an undergraduate was in sociology. My language was classical (not New Testament--classical) Greek. My Ph.D. work was at a State university (Texas) and in scenically program (history of ideas) I told him i studied science in history of ideas. This is a guy who knows nothing about art, literature, philosophy, politics, social scineces, I have very well grounded knowledge of all of those things. He has the audacity to say that I don't know anything but religion. What does he say is so enlightening? the scientism guys!

In other words he can only stand to hear his own ideology. That's pretty much the definition of an ideologue.

Meta:

People like Big Thinker, Timmy, SOMS, Secularone, and many others who I apologize for ommitting. Every single one of the non believers regularly run circles around you, and every other believer on this site. While you talk in could be's and things like "heart' and prayer belief, the non believers talk about reason and probability and give specifics of why your beliefs and other believers don't pass muster.

That's so stupid! that "Big thinker" the only argument he can make is "I refuse to believe, therefore it can't be true" he has actually put that way and said that.  All of the people he named there are idiots. I am constantly kicked the crap out out of all them in argument. Timmy guy is reasonable because he asked questions but we have direct clash he comes back and argues. SOMS posts on my board and is my friend says I'm brilliant, he does not treat me like I'm some stupid shit like the others do.

Paradoxical

I am continually surprised that people such as you don't understand common logic, and have such wishful, fanciful thinking such as people rising from the dead, angels, miracles, God answering prayers and other such nonsense.

Meta:

I have often found that  people who make such bold statements about me not knowing logic really mean by logic "I don't like that." When I ask them things like "define circular reasoning" they start blathering about You believe in ESP (which I don't). They think that's circular reasoning, belief in stuff they don't like. These are the geniuses who are telling they are too rational to think about the heart, and that I don't know logic. The same geniuses Think that appeal to authority means anytime you quote an expert, even a study, you are appealing to authority and that's bad.

In short I find that people who say that my logic is so bad usually know anything about logic.


Originally Posted by Donald View Post

If this is what God wants, perhaps He should have provided us with a means to determine whether a "heart-proposition" is true or false. Otherwise, by what criteria do you determine who's heart is correct- yours (which tells you that God exists) or mine (which tells me that the God concept is downright absurd)?

 Begging the question. He did, you reject it. The means he provided is the religious experience that's why it has such  great effects. You don't accept it because it means leap of faith. So you are just carping becasue you have to make a decision and it's the making of the decision they can't cope with.

 Meta:

Of course we have such a means and I've spelled it out. We use it already. If our perceptions enable navigation in the world we assume they are true. So if our perceptions enable navigation in life, that is they are effective in enabling us to cope with life emotionally and logically then we can assume they are true.

that's the way we do it anyway.

Donald

I hold no beliefs regarding how, or even IF, the universe "came to be." I have bridged no gap.
that's not exactly a job recommendation. I do do that. My world view enables me to do that and yours does not. You can't accept that because it catch you out cold and so try to turn it into a fault--saying "God did it." it's not a valid it's explanatory power.

My ability to accept or reject any proposition requires my existence. As such, it is incoherent that I should have knowledge while not existing. No gap must be bridged, since I must exist in order to ponder my own existence.

 Meta:

that's a conclusion not in evidence. Perhaps we could accept that we exist, if (and only if) we have some way to know that the I that says "I think" is the same I that say "I am." WE don't really know that. However, I'm willing to assume that much. That doesn't' get us past the front door. We still don't know anything else. you might know that you exist you don't know that other minds exist.

Donald

Uniformity of my experience of the data points to this conclusion. There is a gap to cross, of course. The definition of "rational," however, only applies once one has crossed it.

 this came on about page 7 he's the first one in the whole thread to even challenge the concept of take disagreement that he was hiding in the gap.

 Meta:

that's just confirming my argument. Same argument. you are making a epistemic judgmental based upon the criteria regular, consistent, shared and navigation. I only add to it that the studies show RE can taken to fit that criteria too.

Donald

I am willing to "leap over" cracks in the sidewalk. I am willing to leap greater distances, if there are alligators and lions bearing down on me from one side (a metaphor for the impossibility of action necessitated by solipsism). I am unwilling to leap from the edge of the grand canyon from atheism to theism, until a bridge has been built.

Meta: 

I made that leap it was no grand canyon. All you need is to be open to God. Or the possibility of God. not just the intellectual possibility but the idea that god could be experienced. Although I actually didn't know that.

 Meta:

you are obviously making a leap of faith that if you exist than your perceptions of the world are true. The criteria you accept is not proof. it's a judgment. you making judgment call then and passing it of as proof. you haven o proof. you are accepting a judgment. that's a leap of faith.

Donald:

I'm strongly considering that a new fallacy be added to the list- the "argument from solipsism." It essentially goes, "you can't prove X with absolute certainty. Y also can't be proved. Therefore, acceptance of X warrants acceptance of Y."
I'm considering a new fallacy called "the fallacy of assuming I can take out what beat me in an argument so I don't lose to it again.' I just beat you because I proved our argument can only support mine. To deal with that you call it a fallacy.

perfect example of the controlling nature of the atheist view. He can't win the argument so he wants to make a new fallacy based upon disagreement with his view. The fallacy of disagreeing with Donald.

Meta:

you can't call it that because your argument is based on it too.

these are old long accepted stock issues in epistemology. they were the basis of Cartesian analysis. So if you try to take that way you disrupt the basis upon which Desecrates did all his philosophy. Some of that is important to mathematics. There's no justification ripping Desecrates just because you lose the augment. even if we don't need that for the math, that doesn't make it fallacy.

what's the fallacy called" the fallacy of beating you in an argument?