Metacrock Jones? Metacrock in two Interviews about the book on pod casts

 


You longing for me to come back and dispense the lo down on the universe? (I wish someone was). I have a couple of interviews I did on various pod casts. The first one has much better sound, it's easier to understand what I'm saying. I can't believe I sound like a southern friend chicken. If you want to hear how silly my voice sounds and get more on my book, tune into one or both of these.

they are both preceded by long talking by the interviewers about other matters, if you sit through that I think you will enjoy the interviews themselves.I think I'm more witty in the second one, but the first one is easier to listen to and might have more weight. No offense to either interviewer. I enjoyed talking to both of them. first is Chris Date, second is Nick Peters. These are both friends of J.P. Holding.

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

two interviews of me on pod cast

by Metacrock on Wed Jul 30, 2014 7:36 pm

talking about my book of course.

I can't believe I sound like that.

http://www.theopologetics.com/2014/07/18/episode-115-traces-of-you/


http://www.cyiworldwide.com/deeper-waters-archives/deeper-waters-the-trace-of-god-with-guest-joseph-hinman

these are interviews aobut my book the Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief, by Joseph Hinman avaible on Amazon.

I am moon lighting

I'm actualling tacking off Metack's blog to build up the Trace of God Blog. I have a followup to the Cline article which deals with his attack on mysticism.

http://traceofgod.blogspot.com/2014/07/refutting-austin-clines-argument.html


 

Taking a break from Blogging, but here's an interview I did

This is on a podcast, interviewed about my book. If you want hear my beautiful voice and hear me talk about the book.


http://www.cyiworldwide.com/deeper-waters-archives/deeper-waters-the-trace-of-god-with-guest-joseph-hinman

on vactation

going on summer break. back in a couple of weeks.

The Scientific Nature of Physicalism:Turtles All the Way Down

 

I first heard the anecdote about turtles when it starred Wittgenstein. In some class he taught, supposedly, they were referring to the Indian cosmogany in which the earth sits on the back of an elephant and the elephant is on the back of a great turtle. A student asked "what does the turtle sit on?" Supposedly Wittgenstein said "from there on it's turtles all the way down." There is no real proof that Wittgenstein ever said that. Googling the phrase, it is associated with him without proving who said it. Moreover, no one knows what it means. I've seen about six interpretations. It's always associated with the sort of flippant remark a skeptic might make about religious answers. Here I use it as a metaphor for the arrogance of scientism to think that scientific exactitude and certainty rules out the possibility of other realms and forms of truth that science can't seek.

One of the most solid things in modern science is the Greek concept of the atom, and Greek atomism  stands as atheistic symbol and as the basis of scientific thought. The reason atheists use an atomic symbol for their own is becuase they harken back to Greek atomistic view as a replacement for belief in deity. Science shows us all, we know the basic building blocks of reality, sub atomic particles, and thus we know there's no need for a God, yada yada yada. When we examine those bulwarks of modern thought we see that they are shaky and as uncertain as the one about the turtles. This is especially apt for sub atomic particles; science has never found a basic particle, it seems there is always a smaller one, it's particles all the way down.

The Issue of Transcendence

            Are there realms beyond our knowing, is this possible? If so, is there any possibility of our investigating them? Scientists have usually tended to assume that metaphysical assumptions about realms beyond are just out of the domain of science and can’t be investigated so they don’t bother to comment. Victor Stenger, however, wants to be able to assert that he’s disproved them so he argues that the magisteria do overlap. “There exists a widespread notion, promulgated at the higher levels of the scientific community itself, that science has nothing to say about God or the supernatural…”[1] He sights the national academy of sciences and their position that these are non overlapping magisteria, “science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Weather God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.”[2] Stenger disagrees. He argues that they can study the effects of prayer so that means they can eliminate the supernatural.

            Two things are wrong with Stenger’s approach. First, he doesn’t use Lourdes or any other empirical record of miracles. He’s going entirely by double blind studies which can’t control for prayer from outside the control group; that makes such studies virtually worthless. So in effect Stenger is taking the work of people who try to empirically measure what is beyond the empirical, then when it doesn’t work he says “see, there’s nothing beyond the empirical.” That proves nothing more than the fact that we can’t measure that which is beyond measuring. Secondly, he doesn’t deal with the real religious experience studies or the M scale. That means he’s not really dealing with the empirical effects of supernature. I deal with the M scale at length in my book The Trace of God.  I’ve just demonstrated good reason to think that supernature Is working in nature. It’s not an alien realm outside the natural, it’s not a miracle it’s not something that sets its self apart form the daily regular workings of the world. Supernature is of God but nature is of God. God made nature and he works in nature. We can tell the two apart by the results. Now I am going to deal with the other two issues, are there realms beyond the natural? Are there evidences of a form of supernatural in the world that stand apart from the natural such that we can call them “miracles?”

            Are there realms beyond the natural? Of course there can be no direct evidence, even a direct look at them would stand apart from our received version of reality and thus be suspect. The plaintive cry of the materialists that “there is no evidence for the supernatural” is fallacious to the core. How can there be evidence when any evidence that might be would automatically be suspect? Moreover, science itself gives us reason to think there might be. Quantum physics is about unseen realms, but they are the world of the extremely tiny. This is the fundamental basis of reality, what’s beneath or behind everything. They talk about “particles” but in reality they are not particles. They are not bits of stuff. They are not solid matter.[3] Treating particles as points is also problematic. This is where string theory comes in.

This is where string theory comes in. In string theory fundamental particles aren't treated as zero-dimensional points. Instead they are one-dimensional vibrating strings or loops. The maths is hair-raising, and the direct evidence non-existent, but it does provide a way out of the current theoretical cul-de-sac. It even provides a route to unifying gravity with the other three fundamental forces - a problem which has baffled the best brains for decades. The problem is, you need to invoke extra dimensions to make the equations work in string-theory and its variants: 10 spacetime dimensions to be precise. Or 11 (M-theory). Or maybe 26. In any case, loads more dimensions than 4.

So where are they then? One idea is that they are right under our noses, but compacted to the quantum scale so that they are imperceptible. "Hang on a minute", you might think,"How can you ever prove the existence of something that, by definition, is impossible to perceive?" It's a fair point, and there are scientists who criticize string theory for its weak predictive power and testability. Leaving that to one side, how can you conceptualize extra dimensions?[4]

There is no direct evidence of these unseen realms and they may be unprovable. Why are they assumed with such confidence and yet reductionists make the opposite assumption about spiritual realms? It’s not because the quantum universe realms are tangle or solid or material they are not. Scientists can’t really describe what they are, except that they are mathematical.  In fact why can’t they be the same realms?

            Then there’s the concept of the multiverse. This is not subatomic in size but beyond our space/time continuum. These would be other universes perhaps like our own, certainly the size of our own, but beyond our realm of space/time. Some scientists accept the idea that the same rules would apply in all of these universes, but some don’t.

Beyond it [our cosmic visual horizon—42 billion light years] could be many—even infinitely many—domains much like the one we see. Each has a different initial distribution of matter, but the same laws of physics operate in all. Nearly all cosmologists today (including me) accept this type of multiverse, which Max Tegmark calls “level 1.” Yet some go further. They suggest completely different kinds of universes, with different physics, different histories, maybe different numbers of spatial dimensions. Most will be sterile, although some will be teeming with life. A chief proponent of this “level 2” multiverse is Alexander Vilenkin, who paints a dramatic picture of an infinite set of universes with an infinite number of galaxies, an infinite number of planets and an infinite number of people with your name who are reading this article.[5]

Well there are two important things to note here. First, that neither string theory nor multiverse may ever be proved empirically. There’s a professor at Columbia named Peter Woit who writes the blog “Not Even Wrong” dedicated to showing that string theory can’t be proved.[6] There is no proof for it or against it. It can’t be disproved so it can’t be proved either.[7] That means the idea will be around for a long time because without disproving it they can’t get rid of it. Yet without any means of disproving it, it can’t be deemed a scientific fact. Remember it’s not about proving things it’s about disproving them. Yet science is willing to consider their possibility and takes them quite seriously. There is no empirical evidence of these things. They posit the dimensions purely as a mathematical solution so the equations work not because they have any real evidence.[8]

            We could make the argument that we have several possibilities for other worlds and those possibilities suggest more: we have the idea of being “outside time.” There’s no proof that this is place one can actually go to, but the idea of suggests the possibility, there’s the world of anti-matter, there are worlds in string membranes, and there are other dimensions tucked away and folded into our own. In terms of the multiverse scientists might argue that they conceive of these as “naturalistic.” They would be like our world with physical laws and hard material substances and physical things. As we have seen there are those who go further and postulate the “rules change” idea. We probably should assume the rules work the same way because its all we know. We do assume this in making God arguments such as the cosmological argument. Yet the possibility exists that there could be other realms that are not physical and not “natural” as we know that concept. The probability of that increases when we realize that these realms are beyond our space/time thus they are beyond the domain of our cause and effect, and we know as “natural.” It really all goes back to the philosophical and ideological assumption about rules. There is no way to prove it either way. Ruling out the possibility of a spiritual realm based upon the fact that we don’t live in it would be stupid. The idea that “we never see any proof of it” is basically the same thing as saying “we don’t live it so it must not exist.” Of course this field is going to be suspect, and who can blame the critics? Anyone with a penchant for the unknown can set up shop and speculate about what might be “out there.” Yet science itself offers the possibility in the form of modern physics, the only rationale for closing that off is the distaste for religion.

All that is solid melts into air

            This line by Marx deals with society, social and political institutions, but in thinking about the topic of SN it suggests a very different issue. The reductionst/materialists and phsyicalists assume and often argue that there is no proof of anything not material and not ‘physical” (energy is a form of matter). We see this in the quotes at the beginning of the chapter. The hard tangible nature of the physical is taken as the standard for reality while the notion of something beyond our ability to dietetic is seen in a skeptical way, even though the major developments in physics are based upon it. Is the physical world as tangible and solid as we think? Science talks about “particles” and constructs models of atoms made of wooden tubes and little balls this gives us the psychological impression that the world of the very tiny is based upon little solid balls. In reality subatomic particles are not made out of little balls, nor are these ‘particles” tangible or solid. In fact we could make a strong argument that no one even knows what they are made of.

We keep talking about "particles", but this word doesn't adequately sum up the type of matter that particle physicists deal with. In physics, particles aren't usually tiny bits of stuff. When you start talking about fundamental particles like quarks that have a volume of zero, or virtual particles that have no volume and pop in and out of existence just like that, it is stretching the everyday meaning of the word "particle" a bit far. Thinking about particles as points sooner or later leads the equations up a blind alley. Understanding what is happening at the smallest scale of matter needs a new vocabulary, new maths, and very possibly new dimensions.

This is where string theory comes in. In string theory fundamental particles aren't treated as zero-dimensional points. Instead they are one-dimensional vibrating strings or loops. The maths is hair-raising, and the direct evidence non-existent, but it does provide a way out of the current theoretical cul-de-sac. It even provides a route to unifying gravity with the other three fundamental forces - a problem which has baffled the best brains for decades. The problem is, you need to invoke extra dimensions to make the equations work in string-theory and its variants: 10 spacetime dimensions to be precise. Or 11 (M-theory). Or maybe 26. In any case, loads more dimensions than 4.[9]

Particles are not solid; they are not very tiny chunks of solid stuff. They have no volume nor do they have the kind of stable existence we do. They “pop” in and out of existence! This is not proof for the supernatural. It might imply that the seeming solidity of “reality” is illusory. There are two kinds of subatomic particles, elementary and composite. Composite are made out of smaller particles. Now we hear it said that elementary particles are not made out of other particles. It’s substructure is unknown. They may or may not be made of smaller particles. That means we really don’t know what subatomic particles are made of. That means scientists are willing to believe in things they don’t understand.[10] While it is not definite enough to prove anything except that we don’t know the basis of reality, it does prove that and also the possibilities for the ultimate truth of this are still wide open. To rule out “the supernatural” (by the wrong concept) on the assumption that we have no scientific proof of it is utterly arrogance and bombast. For all we know what we take to be solid unshakable reality might be nothing more than God’s day dream. Granted, there is end to the spinning of moon beams and we can talk all day about what ‘might be,’ so we need evidence and arguments to warrant the placing of confidence in propositions. We have confidence placing evidence; it doesn’t have to be scientific although some of it is. That will come in the next chapter. The point here is that there is no basis for the snide dismissal of concepts such as supernatural and supernature.

---

[1] Victor Stenger, God and The Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion. Amherst: New

York: Prometheus Books, 2012. 225.

[2] Stenger, ibid, quoting National Academy of Sciences, Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science. Washington DC: National Academies Press, 1998, 58.

[3] STFC “are there other dimensions,” Large Hadron Collider. Website. Scinece and Facilities Council, 2012 URL: http://www.lhc.ac.uk/The%20Particle%20Detectives/Take%205/13686.aspx

[4] ibid

[5] George F.R. Ellis. “Does the Miltiverse Reallly Exist [preview]” Scientific American (July 19, 2011) On line versoin URL: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-the-multiverse-really-exist

George F.R. Ellis is Proffessor Emeritus in Mathematics at University of Cape Town. He’s been proessor of Cosmic Physics at SISSA (Trieste)

[6] Peter Woit, Not Even Wrong, Posted on September 18, 2012 by woi  blog, URL: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/ 

[7] ibid, “Welcome to the Multiverse,” Posted on May 21, 2012 by woit

 URL: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4715

[8] Mohsen Kermanshahi. Universal Theory. “Sring Theory.”    Website URL: http://www.universaltheory.org/html/others/stringtheory5.htm

[9] STFC ibid, op cit.

[10] Sylvie Braibant; Giorgio Giacomelli; Maurizio Spurio Particles and Fundamental Interactions: An Introduction to Particle Physics (2nd ed.).  Italy: Springer-Verlag, science and Business media, 2009, pp. 1–3. 


Order the Trace of God by Joesph Hinman on Amazon!

 

Answering Austin Cline's "Argument from Religious Experience:Do We Experience God's Existence?"

William James (1842–1910)

Atheist pundit Austin  Cline can often be found pontificating about religion on about.com. He has an article around religious experience as a God argument, [1] his prejudicial dismissal of the argument is tailormade for my new book, The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief, by Joseph Hinman (paperback, soon to be e book available on Amazon) to answer. First I want to clear the way by a knit pick. the phrase "Do we experience God's existence?" is an awkward and odd phrase. It's redundant because the only way we could actually experience God as a reality is if God is real, what we call "existing," thus even though this is a misuse of the term on his part according to Paul Tillich's theology [2] to experience God is to say that God is real and thus the idea that we are experiencing God's existence is just redundant. If we experience God as a reality then God must be real or we are not truly experiencing God's reality. We don't say that we experience the existence of things apart form experiencing those things. I've experienced losing my parents, I don't say 'I have experienced the existence of my parent's deaths.'

Be that as it may Cline opens his argument:

According to the Argument from Religious Experience, people have “religious experiences” — experiences of the supernatural, like heaven or angels or even a god. Because we believe other experiential claims people make — like that they went to the store or own a car — then we should believe these claims as well. It is also argued that when skeptics apply higher standards for claims based on religious experiences than they do for claims based on other experiences, they exhibiting a prejudice against religious claims. This prevents them from understanding and ultimately believing. 

 Here we see a totally inadequate understanding of religious experience. There is no sense here that religious experience is mystical experience or "peak" experience or that it is even a form of consciousnesses. He tries to justify the kind of dismissal tactics atheists use to reduce and mislabel religious experience. He's already demonstrated that he's mislabeling it. The understanding of super nature such that religious experience is "experience of the supernatural" is merely the modern enlightenment misunderstanding of the concept. Super nature is the power of God to raise human nature to a higher level (of consciousness) thus "the supernatural" is mystical experience. See my article "the Empirical Supernatural."[3]

 Cline bases his argument on the work of William James:

William James offers a classic version of this argument in his influential Varieties of Religious Experience. He argues that all normal persons have religious experience and, since experience is the final arbiter of truth, then God — as the object of religious experiences — must be accepted as factually true. James further observes that the religious experiences in question tend to have a profound effect on the lives of people and even whole societies, implying that such effects cannot reasonably be attributed to hallucinations. Instead, it is much more reasonable to believe that a real God is responsible for religious experiences than to attribute the profound effects of those experiences to a mere imaginary being. 

 As profoundly important as James still is in the study of religious experience, and this argument is good in so far as it goes, there are better and more updated versions of the argument. Notice he doesn't  take on William Alston, who is one of the major philosophers of religion of the late twentieth century. Nor does he deal with any of the modern empirical scientific data in favor of religious experience.[4] Cline decides to pick on James as the best example of the argument.

The first problem is in James’ assertion that “all normal people” have “religious experiences.” It is uncertain what exactly he means by this, but it is a much easier assertion to make than to support. If he means experiences of the supernatural — gods, angels, etc. — then he is wrong. If he means something much more vague, like that everyone has experienced awe when contemplating the universe, then he might be right but he isn’t supporting his claim.[5]

 I doubt that James said "normal people" I can't find where he did say it. I notice that Cline doesn't document  it. That could be crucial weather or not he ascribes it to normality. What he actually says is referenced by Wuthnow in his study (this can be seen in my book) where he says there is a continuum in experience that all people (I don't think he says "normal")

As far as the argument itself goes it is perfectly logical. We don't experience things that are not real. We could actually mistake experiences of one thing for another, so that must be answered. We might also have a false experience, that is hallucination or some other trick of the mind. These things are easily disproved in the case of mystical experience. The argument I sustain throughout the Trace of God is designed to answer this argument. The first answer I would give is:

 (1)  that I go to great lengths in my book to show that we habitually use a certain criteria for judging the reality of experience. The studies on religious experience, with the aid of Hood's M scale show us that religious experience of the mystical kind meets this criteria. Thus we must on principle accept it as real and trust it, or doubt our own existences.[6] This arguemnt is made in a simpler way on my lis of God arguments, no. 8 "The Thomas Reid argument," or "Argument from epistemic judgement."[7] The criteria is that we judge experiences real if hey are regular, consistent, shared (inter-subjective) and enable navigation in the world. If other forms of coutner causation are eliminated so that we can be fairly certain that we not expericing falsely logic forces us to conclude that we are experiencing rightly and there is something there to be experinced.

(2) the effects of the experience of are real. I go to great lengths to show (see all of chapter 2) that the outcome of having such experiences is life life transformation, that is a bold dramatic positive long term life changing result. I further argue that long term positive changes consistently are indicative of reality. Pathological states, mental illness and delusion are degenerative, they bring us down and destroy us over time. Nothing false builds us up and is vital too our well being over a long term period. These experiences are transforming over the long term.

(3) At the end of Chapter 7 I present eight tie breakers. The "tie" is conceived of as between brain chemicals as the most likely explanation for the origin of the experience, vs. brain chemistry as merely God's tool for enabling us to experience his presence. That's a stand off it could be either option. The tie breakers tell us it makes much more sense to accept the latter as the most likely possibility.

(4) I also rule out placebo effects in chapter 7. placebo requires that one expect the desired result, but in that chapter I show several ways in which religious experience does not conform to expected norms but often surprises such that it is often unsought, unexpected, a conversion experience, or also it can contradicts cherished doctrines.[8] For some of the studies as much as half the sample received their experiences in childhood. I show that children are not hung up on doctrines so they are not expecting experiences to conform to doctrines. Yet they have these uniform experiences that indicates the experiences are really of  an objective reality.[9]

Cline sticks with his sustained attack against James.In any case his arguments are easy to answer if one knows Jame's  works. My understanding of James is only passing fair. In my book I bring together a much larger body of empirical work which has been done over the last 50 years, armed with this knoweldge it is easy to pick off Cline's bromides. Cline refuses to think past cultural influence  and makes the argument that difference in religious traditions disprove the idea of one reality behind them all. Here's he's trying to play the old atheist divide and conquer game:

The second problem is in the variety of religious experiences: if there is just one God, why is there such wide variety in the reports of religious experiences? Indeed, they are mutually incompatible. They can’t all be true, so at least some must be false. How do we differentiate? What reasons can the religious believer give to accept her reports over the reports made by others? 

 I would argue that the studies on Hood's mysticism scale ("M scale") prove that mystical experience around the world is universally experienced in the same way. They are not conditioned by doctrines, even though they are explained by doctrines and culture that makes them seem different. When the explanation is ignored and the experiences themselves are compared they are the same. That means they have a good reason to assume they are expericing something real, something objectively there (since it's not just a matter of culture of psychology). A more detailed version documented by Hood's M scale studies can be found on The Religious  a priori.[10]

 Cline asserts that there is no criteria that enables us to determine false from true experiences. While I agree that there is no criteria that proves the difference, I have already demonstrated that he's wrong in his assertion:

There are no independent criteria we can use to separate the genuine experiences from false or flawed experiences — not only in the reports of others, but in ourselves. The only criteria which might exist rely upon the validity of some religious system. For example, some argue that a religious experience which does not agree with the Bible is flawed or false — but since this ultimately assumes the truth of what is supposed to be proven, such criteria are unacceptable. 

There is a criteria that we habitually use to assert the reality of experience, we go by that criteria every time: regular, consistent, sheared, navigational. We don't think about it. We dont say to ourselves "I'm going to use that criteria" we just do it. If an experience is anomalous, it's not regular or consistent we assume it's bogus. If we experience things they same way all the time we assume it's normal and its alright. It's only the stuff that stands out as rare or one of a kind that bothers us. If we want confirmation of our view we seek it in others, "is it hot in here to you?" "Did you see that?" If it works we can live by it we assume it's true. Thus we don't stand on the freeway deliberating about Cartesian doubt we get out of the way of oncoming traffic. The studies on religious experience that are discussed in the Trace of God demonstrate that religious experiences fit that criteria thus we should trust them as indicative of reality.[11]

 From there Cline tries to disparage the link between the effects of the experience and an assumption of its truth aptness:

The third problem is in the idea that the profound effects these experiences have is any indicator of the truth. We can grant that people have some sort of experience and we can certainly grant that the experiences have a profound effect; but does this mean we must accept the reported content of these experiences — that they were of a supernatural nature? No. 

 Again he raises the false specter of the hijack version of the supernatural. Real supernatural--the original meaning of the term--referred to mystical experience not to some ookie spookie reality zone that houses all manor of stings that go "bump" in the night. Mystical experience is proved to be real. It is a real phenomena that people have such experiences and those experiences tend to have a certain effect upon the lives of those who have them. The atheists try to turn that phrase "SN" into some kind of badge of dishonor, the fantasy world one dare not believe in. In resorting to that ploy he is dogging the real issue that he himself raised, do these effects of having had such experiences indicate the truth of the object of experience? He says "no" based upon the proviso that it is indicative of the forbidden realm. But if we ask the question in terms of reality and the object of the experience we must say yes.

First of all atheists are inconsistent in that they will argue that the advantage of having an experience is not indicative of truth but then they turn around and affirm this very idea of scinece. Every time I ask atheists how do you know science is true? They always say "because it works, you are using a computer aren't you? Science produced that computer because it works." All hail science! In any case, so saying the affirm the principle that working is related to being true. This is one of my tie breakers in chapter 7. Then Cline dazzels us with more of his fallacious reasoning: "Real experiences that have a profound impact on a person can have completely natural sources without any divine connections."

That just illustrate the atheist misunderstanding of the true concept of SN and the way they use it as a ploy to ward off belief in God by lumping it into the forbidden zone of belief. They make still absurd dichotomy anything natural must lack God and could be the product of evolution. That is an assumption not in evidence. A Gambler getting 100 royal flushes in a row as random chance would be naturalistic but it would not be natural, it would be the greatest of flukes. God created the natural realm and he works in all the time. The assumption atheists make that if it's naturalistic then God can't be in it is absurd. That's why we need the tie breakers, because the naturalistic element of brain chemistry could go either way. It  could be indicative of a Godless origin or it could be God's tool in giving us a sense of his presence.

Yet Cline goes further he makes a foolish assertion that: "Mystical experiences can be reproduced in anyone, both with chemical substances and mechanical equipment. With this being the case, what reason is there to think that other reports actually stem from a supernatural, rather than a natural, cause?" Well if you really want to know:

(1) buy my book and read the end of chapter 7 for the eight tie brakers and you have eight different reasons to assume the answer to that.

(2) The assertion that religious experiences can be reproduced is not proved. There are tons of claims to that effect, but in the book I point out (ala Philosopher John Hick) that those researchers do not have a standard criteria for control in understanding what constitutes religious experience. They do not use the M scale or any other valid scale to determine this. [12] I analyze the Borg study which is hostile to religion and show that their standard is totally unsuited.[13] Because they do not use such criteria they cannot prove that ever produce religious experience. They merely take the presence of cultural icons of religion as indicative of religious experience but there's no sense of consciousness. As I have said dichotomizing bewteen natural and SN is not a valid means of determining God's handiwork since God can work int he natural as easily as he can in the SN. Rather it is God's power to life us up to a higher state of consciousness that is Super nature. The basic state of such consciousness is a matter of fact, regardless of proof about it's origin.

Cline goes on dictonomizing:

If at least some of the alleged religious experiences are wholly natural, how do we separate them from the “truly” supernatural ones? Even if an experience changes the course of a society, that does not testify that the experiences had supernatural origins. At most, it might point to the persuasiveness of the believers or the appeal of the claims. 

 As I said already we do that by buying my book and reading the end of chapter 7 where I list the tie breakers. Then at the end of the article he takes on Swinebrune's argument:

Some, like Richard Swineburne, argue that the degree to which it seems to a person that something has happened should translate into the probability that something has happened. It is true that when people say that it seems to them that a chair is in a room that, therefore, we tend to accept that a chair is in the room. It is not true, however, that every time someone genuinely and seriously believes something, we also accept that whatever they believe is probably true.
We only accept this when it comes to more mundane things which we all have experiences of. When someone says that it seems to them very strongly that an elf is in the room, we do not accept that there is probably an elf in the room, do we?

 I don't argue Swineburne's argument. I've only read it one time. So I wont try to defined it here except to say that the condition of the argument seems to be the extent to which is seem that the person has actually experinced something. We are talking about warrant. If there is a warrant to believe this then there is no logical reason to discount it on face value. That doesn't mean one can't come up with an argument, it does mean the burden of proof is on the sketpic to show that the warrant is invalid and that there is good reason to doubt. Playing dichotomy game and hinting that "O no this leads to the forbidden zone of he SN" is not going to cut it. That is an ideological assumptino that some aspect aspect of reality must be doubted because it is the aspect that it seems to be and and brings too close to God so we must doubt it.

At this point Cline leaves us with the most dubious argument of tall, that failure to obtain mystical experience is a reason to doubt it's validity.

 Even if we accept Swineburne’s argument, we must also accept that when people try to have an experience of a god and fail, that this is good reason to believe that a god probably does not exist. After all, it would be prejudiced to dismiss the experiences of nonbelievers but privilege the experiences of those who already believe.

This argument is open to immediate reversal becasue then one must accept results as indicative of truth. If this is the case then why don't successes reflect that reality of God? The fact that it works has to be understood as truth indicative. Moreover, if results are indicative the fact that the experience is transformative and that being such it fulfills the basic function religion promises to fill in the first place, offers a rational warrant for belief that it is true. I suspect that Cline based his argument upon the arrangements I make because his contains all the basic elements of mine but he didn't bother study how I defend them. Or that may be my own arrogance and conciet.

Either way the Trace of God, my book,  arms the chruch with a power body of scientific data that backs up this and all other experience based arguments. This work injects fiber into the content of experience arguments and no Christian ever need fear the atheists jibes about no facts, no God, atheism has scinece. Atheists have not touched these arguments in five years of battle on CARM. This book serves as a compindium that will enable anyone to defend experience arguments against all commers.

Order The Trace of God On AMAZON in paper back, (soon to be avaible in Hard back and Electronic).

Sources

[1] Austin Cline, "Argument from Religious Experience:Do We Experience God's Existence?" About.com. no date listed. http://atheism.about.com/od/argumentsforgod/a/religexperience.htm  accessed 6/27/14

[2] Tillich famously argued that we can' use the term "existence" in relation to God becuase exist is what contingent things do. God is being itself and thus is above the level of mere "existing." see Shaking of the Foundations, by Paul Tillich.

[3] Metacrock, "The Empirical Supernatural," The Religious a priori, no date given.http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-empirical-supernatural.html accessed 6/28/14.

[4] Willam Alston,Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993, no page indicated. see also The Trace of God, the entire book is about this huge body of data that has heretofore been neglected by both atheists and theists.

[5] Cline, ibid.

[6] Joseph Hinman, The Trace of God: Rational Warrant for Belief.  Colorado Springs: Grand Viaduct Publishing.2014, see the whole of chapter 2.

[7] Metacrock, "8, on list of God arguments: The Thomas Reid Argument,"  Doxa, website, http://www.doxa.ws/experience/Reid.html  accessed 6/27/14. 

[8]  Hinman,The Trace of God... op cit., 286-296.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Metacrock, "The M Scale and The Universal Nature of Mystical Experience," The Religious a priori, website, http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-m-sacle-and-universal-nature-of.html accessed 6/26/14.

 [11] Hinman, The Trace of God, op.cit, 103-127

 [12] Hinman, Ibid.,262-3, 306.

 [13] Ibid., 309

 

 Order The Trace of God On AMAZON

Introducing the Trace of God blog

 




I don't want to turn Metacrock's blog into just a "buy my book" blog. I have made one for my book, the Trace of God blog. Please read it and sign up as followers becuase nothing is more absurd than a blog with no followers.

http://traceofgod.blogspot.com/2014/06/about.html

On that blog I will have all stuff about my book, including criticisms and issues pertaining to the book. It wont be just a bunch of blurbs saying how great it is. I'll do the same kind of interesting (hopefully) stuff that I do here. Nor am I saying that I wont do book related stuff here.

If you have followed Metacrock's blog for a time, please help me get the other blog off the ground.

thanks.

The Last Statesman Dies: Senator Howard Baker

 
 Howard Henry Baker, Jr.
(November 15, 1925 – June 26, 2014)

Wait, what is this? Metacrock Lamenting the passing of a Republican? He was more than just a republican he was the last of the great statesmen. I was jarred by the words of the News anchor Brain Williams who said "we used to call them statesmen." I assume that we used to call them that because we don't any more and we don't anymore because there are no more statesmen!

The concept of the statesman was that of a politician who transcended the narrow confines of the party line and who voted as he saw best for the country. That was Backer. He is most famous as the vice-chariman of the Watergate committee who asked the most relivant question that became the focal point of the whole Watergate affair: what did the President know and when did he know it? In asking that in that context he transcended party and became a man of the people. He also showed that same kind of statesmanship in  all of his dealings in the Senate.

He was the son-in-law of the great Everett Dirksen, the "lion" of the senate. "he married former U.S. Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum, daughter of the late Kansas Governor Alfred M. Landon, who was the Republican nominee for President in 1936." [1]

Howard Henry Baker, Jr. (November 15, 1925 – June 26, 2014) was a Senate Majority Leader, Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee, White House Chief of Staff, and a United States Ambassador to Japan. He worked as a lobbyist and adviser at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.^[1]
Known in Washington, D.C. as the "Great Conciliator", Baker was often regarded as one of the most successful senators in terms of brokering compromises, enacting legislation, and maintaining civility. A story is sometimes told of a reporter telling a senior Democratic senator that privately, a plurality of his Democratic colleagues would vote for Baker for President of the United States.^[2]

Williams (NBC News) said that he was so moderate as a Republican if he were running today he would be a Democrat. We have slid so far to the right that if a Republican is not a right-wing tea party lunatic he's considered a liberal.

see Youtube vido "784 days that changed America part 3"


[1] "Howard Baker,"Wikepeidia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Baker#Personal_life

[2] Ibid

James Hannam Likes The Trace of God

 

 James Hannam

 This is a review of my book, by James Hannam, Ph.D. in history form Cambridge, he's author of Gensis of Science, a ground breaking book that argues that religion never persecuted science in a systematic or sustained way. I think Hannam is on his way up to being a major academic force and I'm honored that he would review my book, much less favorably.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

(from his blog  Quodlibeta

The Trace of God by Joe Hinman

by James Hannam 

“Are mystical experiences real?” asks Joe Hinman in his new book, The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief. It should not be too much of a spoiler to reveal that he concludes that they are. Joe has distilled the research on mysticism since William James to determine the commonalities of these experiences and to ask how much they can tell us about aspects of reality not readily accessible to everyday experience.

There are plenty of problems with studying mystical or “peak” experiences. For a start, they are highly subjective and extremely difficult to describe. Francis Spufford gives it a go in his excellent book Unapologetic, but reading about someone else’s experience is always second best. I am a decidedly non-mystical person and so I find the subject alien, if quite fascinating. Joe introduces us to Ralph Hood Jr’s “M scale” which attempts to provide a measure of mystical experience so that they can be compared and validated. In fact, it turns out that there has been a great deal more work in this area than your might imagine. This has revealed uniformities that mean we can certainly group these experiences into a single category.

But are they real? The standard rationalist response is to dismiss mysticism was something that goes on inside our heads, often aided by illicit chemicals. It has no external cause and so it is of interest to neurologists and hippies only. It certainly can’t tell us anything about God. As Joe explains, the problem with this dismissal is that all our experiences are ultimately subjective. We never enjoy unmediated access to reality, but only the most radical solipsist would claim this means that reality doesn’t exist. We know when we are awake and quite often know when we are dreaming. Mysticism isn’t like that – it feels more real than everyday life.

Still, the strength of science, says the rationalist, is that it overcomes subjectivism by insisting on repeatability. Joe marshals Thomas Kuhn and other sociologists of science to argue that scientists are just as prone to herd mentality as the rest of us. I’m not sure this goes far enough to mean a mystical experience can claim parity of subjectivity with a laboratory experiment. But Joe doesn’t want to take things that far. He just argues that the mere fact that mystical life is subjective does not rule it out of court as a valid experience from which we can extrapolate knowledge. His basic argument is that we are justified in accepting religious truths on the ground of our own experiences (what is called the “religious a priori”). Thus, mysticism can provide us for a rational warrant for religious belief.

The bulk of The Trace of God is taken up by detailed rebuttals of sceptical arguments against mysticism: that it is just emotions and feelings, caused by drugs or brain chemistry. Joe blunts these arguments, but he would be the first to admit that he has not proved that mystic experiences are not purely internal. However, by showing that rationalists cannot invalidate mysticism, he leaves the road open to his own argument: these experiences are evidence of God in the way that a footprint is evidence of a wild animal. Mysticism provides a trace that gives us a rational warrant to postulate the existence of the being that gave rise to the spoor. We’re not dealing in proof here. In that respect, Joe’s project is similar to Alvin Plantinga’s work on warrant. But whereas Plantinga floats his justifications on rarefied philosophical air, Joe builds on the solid ground of widely experienced phenomena. No one, as far as I am aware, believes in God because of philosophy. Plenty of people base their religious faith on mystical experience.

This leaves us with two difficult questions: is belief in God warranted by someone else’s mystical experience? And where does religious doctrine fit into experiences that can be wildly inconsistent? Joe doesn’t really deal with the first of these. He concludes that the evidence of mysticism provides him with warrant for knowledge about God that he has anyway. It doesn’t seem to provide much evidence for the non-believer unless that non-believer is willing to invest in a religious interpretation of these experiences. As far as apologetics goes, this is a “come on in, the water’s lovely” argument. 

And what about doctrine? Joe, like me, is an orthodox Christian of liberal persuasion. One senses that, for him, the universal aspects of mysticism are an advantage not a problem. A Christianity that damned the rest of humanity (or worse a Christian sect that damned most Christians into the bargain) is not one that Joe or I would be comfortable with. If mystical experiences provide warrant for believing in God, they also provide evidence of God’s interest in all of humanity. Joe distinguishes between knowing God “face to face” and the knowledge of doctrine. He finds evidence for the distinction in the writings of Paul: the man who had the most famous mystical experience in history. 

Overall, as a first book that breaks new ground in the philosophy of religion, this book represents a considerable achievement. Joe’s publishers, Grand Viaduct, also deserve credit for helping him overcome the disadvantage of dyslexia to communicate his ideas in a format such that they might achieve the recognition they deserve.




ORDER THE BOOK ON AMAZON!


http://www.amazon.com/The-Trace-God-Rational-Warrant/dp/0982408714

It Can't be That Hard to Understand Rational Warrant (part 2)

 

 

 This is relevant to my book The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman: in chapter one I introduce the standard to which I argue, rational warrant for belief rather than proof. See my book available on Amazon:

Order The Trace of God (by Joseph Hinman--My book) on Aamazon

Kane Augustus's arguments on Rational Warrant, that I introduced in the last post on Monday. [1] He makes an argument to prove that warrant is a cheap trick (it's an official part of the logic of an argument--thus he shows us he does not know logic or argumentation). His first argument is:

Now, as my friend stated, and I agreed, such reasoning is fine in a debate setting because it would be a little improper to go into a debate not knowing your position on the resolution.  However, for a philosophical proof and a didactic aide, such reasoning only gives a person logical permission to assume a plausible conclusion; that is, "rational warrant."  And rational warrant, is not proof.  Rational warrant cannot firm up the link between correlation and causality, therefore it is not conclusive proof.  Rational warrant is only a fancy way of giving yourself permission to believe a given plausibility clause when the hard work of reasoning through a syllogism is over.

Yes, that's just how I described it. It's giving permission to believe something. Why? becuase it's the step in logic that justifies the thing believed,it's the evidence or the logical proof that shows that there is a good reason to think so (whatever is believed). So I am merely stopping short of trying to prove and being continent with having a reason to think God exists. Then he tries to prove it (that warrant is a cheap rhetorical trick) by an argument:

Suppose I was to say to you, "there is a 900 lbs. hungry tiger in the next room," and you realised there was no door between you and the hungry tiger.  You would suddenly have a swell of emotions that correlate to your inward ideas of a hungry tiger, what that tiger is capable of doing to a person, and your own need for safety.  You would, in fact, have what Kant described as a noumenal experience.

I suppose he means no closed door, in other words an open door. If there was no door at all then no way for the tiger to get me so I would not feel as unsafe. I also doubt it would be a noumenal experience. I don't think sheer terror is noumenal. Nevertheless that's not worth picking at.He argues that we would experience the tiger as if it were real with no proof at all that it was, other than the word of the one who tells us about it. "so you have effectively believed my proposition that "there is a 900 lbs. hungry tiger in the next room" because it was reasonable for you to believe me (at least for the purpose of this illustration!).  In effect, you had "rational warrant" to believe my claim."

This is actually not necessarily true. The claim that there is a tiger in the next room could be warranted, if the person telling us this is trusted and we know from past experience that we can trust the person's claims, and perhaps he/she seems alarmed and frightened and tells us about the tiger in a state of panic and terror then we might have a good reason to think the claim is valid if we have such a reason then it is warranted. Suppose the person seems drunk, is laughing and not alarmed at all. Suppose the open door reveals enough of the room so hat we can see it's empty. Then we have no warrant to believe it, but we do have a warrant to disbelieve it.

At this point Augustus posits the idea that we learn in a couple of days it was just a joke. "...but you would also recognise the falsity of your "rationally warranted" beliefs concerning the 900 lbs. tiger." If indeed it could be said to be warranted. I've just pointed out that not just any old claim is warranted. There has to actually be a warrant that warrant must be established by argument and data or logical demonstration something to establish a reason. Just assenting "a tiger could hurts me" is not a reaosn. It' is a telling commentary on the atheist fear of experiences. They fear emotions as deceitful things that carry us away from the truth and we can't control them. He's just asserting unwarranted that any sort of emotional connection to a proposition is a warrant.

And this is where the notion of "rational warrant" really breaks down: simply reasoning to a plausible conclusion is not proof, and that's all "rational warrant" is: reasoning to a plausible conclusion.  It is a stylised flash of rhetoric that gives a veneer of reason to a belief-claim. Because "rational warrant" is a catch-phrase or byword indicating the right of every person to believe whatever they'd like based on their subjective experience of a thing, or a proposition, it reduces even further to relativism.  That is, the notion that what I believe is just as true and valid as what you believe, even if we disagree.  Objective reality (A is A) is thrown out the window, so to speak, in favour of a solipsistic encounter with the world.  Which is fine if you're a solipsist, but for those of us who don't simply assimilate external realities into our self-projections on the world, the relativism of "rational warrant" simply doesn't supply a useful tool to interacting with the world.

No this is where his understanding of what a warrant is breaks down. He contradicts himself in this paragraph. First of all he seems to think that because warrant is not proof that it's "just a cheap trick" but he's also admitted above that "Rational warrant is only a fancy way of giving yourself permission to believe a given plausibility clause when the hard work of reasoning through a syllogism is over." That means it's a valid part of the reasoning process and so it can't be a cheap trick. It's not proof. I have always said it's not proof. That doesn't mean it's therefore BS or nothing or a cheap trick. It's a valid and necessary stop on the way to proof. I am merely advocating that we don't go all the way because we can't. God is beyond proof since we demand the sort of proof that reduces the thing proved to the status of a thing controlled by our subject/object dichotomy. God transcends our understanding. That does not mean there is no good valid reason to believe. One must have this to have a warrant. So the drunk guy telling us there's a tiger does not give a warrant for belief there is a tiger. Your father who is not senile and is greatly trusted shouting hysterically that there is a tiger becuase he saw it might give a warrant for believing it.

He says: "It is a stylized flash of rhetoric that gives a veneer of reason to a belief-claim. Because "rational warrant" is a catch-phrase or byword indicating the right of every person to believe whatever they'd like based on their subjective experience of a thing, or a proposition, it reduces even further to relativism." Where does he get all that malarkey? He's just dogmatically made up several points to define warrant (contardicting his eraliwer stament that implies that it's a part of reason) which Toulmin never authorizes:

*Stylized Flash of rhetoric

*catch-phrase

*right to believe 'whetever they would like'

*based upon subjective experience

These last two are especially irksome because nothing could be further from the truth. Toulmin defines warrant as the step between the premise and the conclusion that makes the conclusion possible. That's hardly an invitation to believe whatever you want. Toulmin never says such a thing. Actually it's "a general rule indicating the relevance of a claim: argumentation, claim, backing, data, syllogism.[2] Three examples by different people are quoted by Nordquist

Examples:

(1) [T]he Toulmin warrant usually consists of a specific span of text which relates directly to the argument being made. To use a well-worn example, the datum 'Harry was born in Bermuda' supports the claim 'Harry is a British subject' via the warrant 'Persons born in Bermuda are British subjects.'"
(Philippe Besnard et al., Computational Models of Argument. IOS Press, 2008)

 (2) "The connection between the data and the conclusion is created by something called a 'warrant.' One of the important points made by Toulmin is that the warrant is a kind of inference rule, and in particular not a statement of facts."
(Jaap C. Hage, Reasoning With Rules: An Essay on Legal Reasoning. Springer, 1997)

(3) "Toulmin expresses the difference between data and warrant as follows:

[ . . .] data are appealed to explicitly, warrants implicitly. (1988, p. 100)

According to Toulim (1988), there is a close relationship between the data and warrants used in any particular field of argumentation:

The data we cite if a claim is challenged depend on the warrants we are prepared to operate within that field, and the warrants to which we commit ourselves are implicit in the particular steps from data to claims we are prepared to take and to admit. (p. 100)

So, the warrant is implicitly present in the step from data to claim and, conversely, the nature of the data depends on the nature of the warrant."
(F. H. van Eemeren et al. Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996)[3]

As we can see the middle example reflects what I've already said about the warrant linking premise and conclusion. In none of these examples is something wild and frivolous being exemplified. It's not a cheap trick justifying whatever one wants to think. the last one alludes to that definition.  Kane says this because atheists love to bad mouth belief in God. He has keep the ridicule going.

None of the things that Augustus puts into his definition are present in Toulmin's definition of warrant.It's not subjective, it's a justification for anything you want or any of that. Most laughable of all is his claim that warrant reduces to relativism. Where does he get this stuff? he says: "That is, the notion that what I believe is just as true and valid as what you believe, even if we disagree.  Objective reality (A is A) is thrown out the window, so to speak, in favor of a solipsistic encounter with the world." He's on a slippery slope argument. Start with your opponent asserting something with which you disagree and end up with your opponent creating nuclear war. This is all manufactured out of his ignorance because he doesn't know what arguemnt is about. I've never said anything bout warrant, nor does Toulmin to imply that it has anything to do with my view being as valid as the views of another. He's making an unwarranted connection between what people say about being open minded and warrant, for some bizar reason because the two have nothing to with each other. We might take pause to consider his suspicion about the nature of fair mindedness.

After his paranoia about warrant destroying objective reason and ending in solipsism, why subjective knowledge leads to solipsism we have to discuss sometime because that's a ludicrous slippery slope fallacy. What is a "solipsistic encounter with the world?" Solipsism is not encountering the world it's explaining it away. Be that as it may, he says: "Which is fine if you're a solipsist, but for those of us who don't simply assimilate external realities into our self-projections on the world, the relativism of 'rational warrant' simply doesn't supply a useful tool to interacting with the world." Look where his tirade has taken him? He ends up equating a valid part of the logical process with solipsism. why? Because atheists are deathly afraid of having to think, to experience, and to take chances of being wrong. They have to have everything proved and totally nailed down so they don't make a mistake. Augustus whole article is a study in contradiction and hysterical ignorance.

Take the example given above: the datum 'Harry was born in Bermuda' supports the claim 'Harry is a British subject' via the warrant 'Persons born in Bermuda are British subjects." Where's the solipsism? Where's the wild frenzy to believe whatever one wishes to believe? A very simple schemata:

 

The Toulmin Model

1. Claim: the position or claim being argued for; the conclusion of the argument.
2. Grounds: reasons or supporting evidence that bolster the claim.
3. Warrant: the principle, provision or chain of reasoning that connects the grounds/reason to the claim. 
4. Backing: support, justification, reasons to back up the warrant.
5. Rebuttal/Reservation: exceptions to the claim; description and rebuttal of counter-examples and counter-arguments.
6. Qualification: specification of limits to claim, warrant and backing.  The degree of conditionality asserted. [4]

 Augustus is going to allow his reach to exceed his grasp because he has to take warrant away form Christians so that atheists can go on saying "there is no proof for God." I think they know instinctively that belief is warranted.To accomplish this he argues that only true things can be warranted. "The idea of 'rational warrant', as I recently learned, can only apply to those beliefs which are actually true.  In effect, this means that a vast majority of beliefs held through history have not been rationally warranted." There's another contradiction, doesn't this contradict the idea that it justifies whatever you want? If it's a cheap rhetorical  trick how can it be limited to true things? Moreover, since it is a legitimate part of the process of proving the truth it can hardly be limited to the truth. That's like saying only true things can be proved true. Yes, that's a tautology. Warrant is a means of helping estabish what is true. Thus it can't be checked by the claim we can only warrant things that are true. That's like saying "that's only true if it is true." Yes. right. How does that help us?

So for a believing Christian, say, they would consider their beliefs "rationally warranted" because they are able to determine correlations between what they experience (mysticism),  the contingencies in nature, and what they already assume about supernatural realities (e.g., that God exists).  Oddly though, a believing Christian would disagree with the beliefs derived of a Muslim experience, and visa versa, even though they may agree on a good number of things, too.  And both the Christians and the Muslims would be "rationally warranted" for both their agreements and disagreements surrounding their particular metaphysic...

 Here he is doing the circular reason bit: there is no God, therefore Christians are stupid, therefore they are wrong, therefore their arguemnts are not good, therefore belief is not warranted, therefore there's no God. It makes no difference what views might or might not be warranted. That's old atheist assumption that arguments are empircal experiements. They are not. The process of logical deliberation is not determined by the success rate of those who attempt to use it. He's reasoning backwards from "I don't believe in God" to "those who believe in God use this method, therefore the method is wrong because I don't like where it leads them." The idea of corrolateing experinces with logic is the way we navigate in the world anyway.

One final comment, which came in the comment section of Monday's post, I was ask if warrant is the same as properly basic ideas. I don't so. I think properly basic ideas must have warrants. The two are similar in that they stop short of proof, but they are not exactly the same: warrant is necessary for properly basic ideas but it is not in itself proper basicality.  I know that probably doesn't sratch met where he itched but I may bet around to a further discussion on that latter.

Sources

[1] Kane Augustus, "Rational Warrant: a critique p1," Saints and Cynics, nov, 2010 blog http://saintcynic.blogspot.com/2010/11/rational-warrant-critique-p-i.html 

accessed 6/17/14

[2]Richard Nordquist, "Warrant," About Education, On line resource.

http://grammar.about.com/od/tz/g/warrantterm.htm accessed 6/17/14

[3]Ibid, Nordquist quoting Erlbaum (1996),Springer, (1997)  Besnard (2008).

[4] "The Toulmin Model of Argumentation,"Dandiago State University. 

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~digger/305/toulmin_model.htm 

accessed 6/17/14

Order The Trace of God (by Joseph Hinman--My book) on Aamazon