Monday, August 18, 2014
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
God does not have super powers
Superman
This is probably a pretty elementary post for my readership. I thought it might help stimulate discussion. this is motivated by a post on CARM that asked "could Jesus beat up a T Rex." O those guys are getting into some pretty heavy stuff over there. The OP beings "even though Jesus has super powers..."
It's important not to think of God in terms of superman. All our knowledge and understanding of reality is based upon metaphor and correlations. We can' have causal connections without them, without causes we can't predicts the result of our actions. It would be total crippling to rid ourselves of all causal thinking.
Linking God with superman is just a correlation,an analogy, but for that reason it teaches us to limit God. Superman is just a man, even though he can do stuff we can't do. he's not analogs to God becuase he's not limitless and he's not the basis of reality.
Big man in Sky
one of the major problems in the way atheists (and fundamentalists) think about God is limiting him to the power range and conceptual range of a big man in the sky. We need to be conceiving of God in different ways and creating new associations and images so that we can elevate our thinking about God beyond that of a comic book character.
God is not a big man in the sky. He's eternal, he has no origin, no begging, there's no origin story of how he got his powers. there's always an origin story for supermen. Superman get's powers from the yellow sun of the earth (Krypton had a red sun).
God's powers are limitless. we could measure much superman can do. He can turn earth around in it's orbit but he drag away the whole solar system. God can. God can do it all. The only conceivable limit on god is one chooses to be limited by such as human free will, or logical necessity (he can't do contradictory things that dont' make sense).
We tend to associate God with human motivations and human thinking. The OT does this because it wants us to relate to god. We can't relate to the ground of being, or the basis of reality. We can't feel that the ground of being loves us so the Bible images god as a big man, a mother bear, a women suckling a child. In the Hebrew system of poetry and imagery these are supposed to be compounded to stack up to something beyond the range suggested by any one image. There are many passages, usually overlooked, that say things "my thoughts are not your thoughts." Or "God is not like a man he doesn't need anything."
We should be willing to conceive of God in new ways and in ways that don't link him with magnified humanity. We can't lose sight of the relations that OT uses to enable us to feel closer to God.
Nothing wrong with comparing God to a mother nursing a child, as long as we can associate god with transcendent things as well; the laws of physics or Hegelian dialectic.
big man in sky
Monday, August 11, 2014
How Do We Know God is Not Evil?
I've seen atheists ask this in various forms. The most recent I've seen is "prove God isn't evil." I answered that with three arguemnts only to find the atheists pulling the old relativism thing. How do we know good and evil even exist at all they said? Well, first of all, in answering the question about "prove god is not evil," the challenge was in reference to Christian ideas. To even ask the question assumes a Christian framework. You can't say on the one hand "God might really be evil," then say "but there's no such thing as evil." That would have no meaning. God might really be this thing that has no meaning and doesn't exist? What kind of meaning does that have? One get's the feeling of being set up for a cheap trick. Like we say "ok so God is evil ni the sense that there is no such thing as evil. so what?" they say "O you admitted it, God is evil you said it ok that's the end of Christianity!" Those are two completely different questions to answer the one you must bracket the other. first I will present my arguments to prove that God is not evil, and to do that assume the Christian framework for good and evil. Then I will deal with the relativistic stuff (that there is no good or evil).
I am assuming there is such a thing as good and we all have a general idea of what that is. Now I also noted that many atheist in the discussion I allude to above (where the challenge was made "prove God is not evil") were assuming a contradiction in the Bible where on the one hand God says "love your neighbor" and on the other hand he says "slaughter the Amelekites kids." So there's the problem of a contradiction between the values God expresses and the behavior God exhibits. Thus we assume the values expressed are true values of good, and that is a meaningful term, but the question is does God seem to betray the very values that he instigates?
Before giving three positive reasons to think God can't be evil, (that is a logical impossibility) we have to deal with the seeming contradiction in the Bible. In the discussion on a certain message board aluded to above, a friend of mine who is an atheist said this:
Originally Posted by mikey_101
Those are based upon bible verses and bible verses are not creeds, they are not dictum they are not decrees. In short we don't have to bleieve them.
There is NO official Christian doctrine or document or creed or council that say "you must believe every verse in the bible." The fundies say it but they didn't exist until the 1820s. They are merely late commers in Christian history.Each one of those passages must be analogized in the original language and discussed according to the history and culture and textual evidence to show it really belongs in the Bible or not.I can tell you now there is evidence Amalekite passage is added in latter.
The text of 1 Samuel is one of the most heavily redacted in the Bible. As we will see, it's very presence in the canon has been brought into question, but the version we have is probably a corrupted second rate copy, and the LXX is closer, and Q4Sama at Qumran closer still, to the actual original.
Institutte Bibilcal Scientific Studies:
Biblical Archaeology, Dead Sea Scrolls and OT
"1&2 Samuel"
"For the past two centuries textual critics have recognized that the Masoretic Text (MT) of 1&2 Samuel has much textual corruption. The Samuel MT is shorter than the LXX and 4QSama. The Samuel MT has improper word division, metathesis, and other orthographic problems. Certain phrases and clauses go against the Hebrew grammar rules. Parallel passages vary from each other" (See Charlesworth, 2000, pp.227-8).
Redaction of Infant Slaughtering Passage
Notes in the New Oxford Annotated Bible on 1 Sam 15:1-35
"Another story of Saul's rejection: The late source. Compare this section with 13:7-15, Samuel, not Saul is the leading figure once more."
This is the very passage in which Samuel relays God's command to wipe out the infants. So even though I still need to find more specific evidence for that very passage, there is a good chance of proving redaction. While its true that I can't produce an actual MS showing no infant slaughter command, the passage in which that command is given has been redacted. The odds are very high that this command was not part of the original passage, or we can regard it as such. We know that slaughtering infants in evil, and we have no obligation to accept a command as divine that we know to be totally at odds with God's law and God's moral code.
All the other verses must be dealt with in similar fashion, one by one, and an overview entailing a theory of inspiration adopted so that one knows how to approach scripture. For an example on this one might consult my page on the nature of Biblical revelation as an example.
Now I present the three arguments that prove God is not evil:
I. Being is good.
Being is not evil. We are all part of being, we all engage in the act of being. We know from our existence that existing is good and it's not evil. There's no reason to think it is. It's hard for a lot of people to get thier minds around the idea of God as being itself. I've certainly spent a lot of time blogging about the concept. I wont go into it here. It can be found on Doxa in several pages. I'm also just finishing my second book which is on the subject. Wait a couple of years and it will be out.
syllogism:
*God is being itself
being is good.
therefore God must be good.
One objection to this is that some atheists tried to evoke the notion that life is not good. One cna mean this either in terms of "my individual life sux," or in terms of amorality or some form of relativism. That would be cheating the issues here becuase I explain above the original challenge assumes Christian categories of good and evil. Moreover, one can condemn the concept of life itself by one's own experiences. I can have rotten life (to some extent that's what I make it) that doesn't mean all life is rotten. There is a goodness about life itself. Here I take life as a pragmatic form of existence. Existence in and of itself is "good," if not in a moral sense (which is one confussion of the argument--the mixing of senses between moral and pragmatic) at least just in the sense of the (apparent) goodness of open ended possibility.
II. Love can't be evil.
This is one of those mysterious points that of which atheists are most incredulous. Almost every time they will say "you are logic is so bad" on this point. When pressed they never say why. they can't give me a rule of logic that's violated, nine times out of ten it's a matter of rejecting the concept of a priori. That unusually happens becuase they have self esteem problems, as atheists are known to have.
The nature of love makes it the very definition of Good. What is the nature of the good, it's what love is, being kind, being gentile, caring about others, giving to others, living for others. How do we know this? First we have to realize we are not talking about butterflies in the stomach. Many atheists try to lose the concept of love in the emotions that go with it, which they sweep away as the side effect of brain chemistry. The kind of love experienced in romance, puppy love,infatuation, lust, sexual attraction and the like is what is meant here by "love." Here I speak of agape. This is "God's love" sometimes translated "charity." Although that is not a good translation. Paul Tillich defines it as "the will t the good of the other." I think that is a most apt decryption. The Greek does imply the willingness to assign to others the human dignity due them.
It is more or less an axiomatic tenet that love is the background of the moral universe (consult Saint Augustine, and Joseph Fletcher). I am not sure it can be proved, thus making it "axiomatic." Like most axioms trying to deny it would be absurd. This is certainly true in terms of Christian theology.
1 John 4:
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Don't even think about trying to argue that "you are trying to prove the Bible by the bile." I am not trying to prove the bible I'm demonstrating the Christian categories which the original challenge assumes (so I have to go by the to answer the challenge). This is exactly what atheists would do to try and prove than an idea was Christian. If we are considering Christian ethics then we must consider that love is the background of the moral universe. Love is the basis of God's character.
That either the issue becomes redundant if we consider the relativist position (which we will soon enough) or it rebounds onto the Christian categories and becomes a matter of what we think about the Bible. With a fundamentalist view of inerrancy it's hard to see how there is not a contradiction in the categories, what God says and what God does. Yet of course that is not the only Christian answer; there are several other views that take up different approaches to the bible that serve as alternatives.
syllogism:
Love is not evil
God's nature is love and God is the original source of love
therefore God is not evil.
Thus, from the perspective of the Christian categories each of the above arguemnts individually prove that God is not evil and cannot be construed as evil.
III. Evil can't be the first thing.
Evil is the absence of the good. That means there has to be a good preceding evil to be departed from to create an absence. evil is rebellion against good. Evil is rejecting the good. all of this implies good is first.God is eternal so God has to be first. A lot of people reject the categories of good and evil becasue they don't like the way they are made. One of the major issues in atheism (even though many atheists don't realize it--a psychological problem) is self rejection leads to rejection of the idea that a loving God would make me the way I am. I was an atheist I know what it is to think that way. The old cliche "God is not finished with me yet" has it's uses and this is one of them.If you don't like the way God made you it's only becuase he's not finished yet. If you rebel against God you are not letting him finish you.
That means there has to be a good preceding evil to be departed from to create an absence.
Actual Atheist Objection:
"That doesn't follow. A hole is an absence of earth, the
existence of a hole doesn't imply there was earth. Counter example to
your premise." I this I argued "are you kidding? Isn't a hole defined by
what's around it? That's like saying "I don't believe donuts exist,
only the holes exist." A hole with nothing around it is nothing.
syllogism:
evil is falling away from, therefore, good is prior to evil
God is eternal and thus is prior to all things
therefore, God can't be evil.
Now we come to the issue of relativism. For those who do not hold to the Christian categories of good and evil but try to define them either by sweeping them away, or by using the terms relative to other standards, how does one come to ascertain the truth content of the Christian categories? The only way one can really do this is empirically. Of course this assumes there's a god. Though many atheists will try not allow such an assumption, it's pointless to ask about God's character if you don't assume there is a God, at least for the sake of argument. I have certainly spent enough time on this blog giving reason enough why one can assume God based upon any number of things. For those tempted to make comments and demand reasons I tell you now, see my 42 arguments, especially no 7 and no 8. I single out those two becasue they form the basis of the empirical approach. One might also see my essay on phenomenology and Method.
Certainly we are talking about taking religious experience seriously. The same reasoning that would allow one to understand God as reality would also allow one to understand God's character as love. It makes no sens to take up a challenge or to even issue one about God's goodness then turn around and say "you can't prove that becuase you can't prove god exists." Ok so that what sense would it make to argue "god is fictional but he's really evil?" The realization that leads to faith is the same realiation that allows us to understand God's love. It's simply an empirical matter. We experince God's presence, swe sesne God's love. In a life of 30+
years that has never been disproved. Even in times when I lost faith and thought God was disproved, even in times when I lost everything and thought God was evil, he was neither evil, or absent nor unfaithful. (see part 2 here).
excerpt from those last two links:
Looking back on it things actually were better after we left the house. At the time, however, we couldn't see that. Then it seemed like the end. We were scared, we were homeless, we couldn't find an apartment because we had "financial leper" on our credit. Since 9/11 getting an apartment in Dallas was next to impossible. When I first moved away form my parents and went to New Mexico back in 80, no one cared who I was or what my credit was. I gave them money they gave me an apartment. By 2006, however, in Dallas, it was next to impossible even if your credit was good. It really seemed like the end. I began saying "I am dead, I died, they just haven't told the corpse to lay down yet." I also began to say "God has cursed me." "God loves to crush his own guys, this is what I get for caring about my parents." You know I was practicing for the glee club. I was a tower of faith. We did find an apartment, we had a couple of thousand dollars from the guy who bought the house (because he was a Christian he said) even though the mortgage company actually makes them promise not to help the victim, not to give more than the mortgage price in a short sale. It's set up so the the victim losing the house can't get anything for his/her hard earned ears of struggle to buy the house. He bought the furniture and car and then let us keep them.
God was faithful to me even when I was not faithful to him. I was calling him a lair and shouting at him and I said worse than that. I called him a monster and told him he loved to hurt people. He didn't care, he's heard it all. I didn't shame God into helping me, he was working to help me anyway, I only held up the process and made it take longer by not trusting and not looking to seek the spiritual instead of freaking out because things didn't look good. Easy to forget, we walk by faith and not by sight. That means its' going to look grim. That doesn't mean anything you just have to trust God. Cultivate your spiritual relationship with God. Cultivate our inner life! It's a life long project, work on it every day.
That requires a life of faith to understand. The first step is to seek. Then it will fall into place. It wont fall into place when you renounce God and make skepticism your watchword. If your principle is to see through everyging, as C.S. Lewis said, you wind seeing nothing.
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Atheists Confuse Logic and Argument, with Science
Toulmin Argument Diagram
Many atheists don't know that arguments are constructed out of lines of reason and that their function is to persuade us that there a particular conclusion that we should to. Many of them confuse logic with scientific experiment. they think an argument should start with evidence, then unbiasedly observe to see the facts rather than making petition for a particular view point. Of cousre in saying this they are not being open ended and unbiased as they would have us believe. They are destroying arguments that give us reason to believe in God and replacing them with their own biased view point int he fortress of facts.
Some examples of atheists doing this and saying these things can be seen on carm. Pseudoexpat can be seen on carm making a post on top down logic in response to Royce's post attacking a "special kind of top down logic" that he can't name or describe but it's found in God arguments. Here is Royce's original thread. My responding thread on "atheist double talk on top down reasoning," and "atheists privilege doubt."
In Pseudoexpat's thread and in response to his OP (which is an excellent refutation of Royce's original nonsense)Pixie says:
Originally Posted by Pseudoexpat
Pixie:
I think the point is that an argument should go from evidence to reasoning to conclusion. So-called top-down reasoning in contrast starts with a conclusion, then attempts to contrive the reasoning and evidence to support it. It is motivated reasoning because is is based on a motivation to prove the desired (and pre-determined) conclusion. I do not think you really address this properly.He has an argument starting from evidence and preceding to conclusion as though it's observing the evidence to see what happens. He condemns reasoning that "is based on a motivation to prove the desired (and per-determined) conclusion." That's what arguemnt is. He's thinking of a scientific experiment that has to be open ended.Logical arguments are not open ended. Their function is to guide us to a specific point through showing the reasoning takes us there. The confusion with scinece is expressed in an even stronger fashion by an atheist who chimes in to agree with this guy:Fanghur. He says:
Right, and the premises of any argument should always be based on the empirical evidence we currently possess, not on blind speculation regarding things that are currently beyond our ability to test, and hence which we have zero basis to make any sort of probability estimation regarding.Premises need not be based upon emprical evidence. The reason he thinks so is because he thinks it's like a scientific experiment. That's a bad understanding of science as well argument. The true nature of science is not to prove things but to disprove. Science does not work by observing what ahpepns objectivley then recording facts.Yes that is done to an extent but not in all cases. That's not the true aim. The true aim is to disprove bad bad hypothesis and from that to offer an adequate explanation, which by virtue of it's status as the only hypothesis still standing is accepted as default. At least that's according to Popper. [1] Compare this with a web definition of argument:
a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong."there is a strong argument for submitting a formal appeal"
synonyms: reasoning, justification, explanation, rationalization; More[2]
The Toulmin model of argument presents the parts of an argument:
None of that is about observing nor is it open ended. It may or may not begin by presenting data, but that is a matter of impersonation not logic.The Toulmin Model
- Claim: the position or claim being argued for; the conclusion of the argument.
- Grounds: reasons or supporting evidence that bolster the claim.
- Warrant: the principle, provision or chain of reasoning that connects the grounds/reason to the claim.
- Backing: support, justification, reasons to back up the warrant.
- Rebuttal/Reservation: exceptions to the claim; description and rebuttal of counter-examples and counter-arguments.
- Qualification: specification of limits to claim, warrant and backing. The degree of conditionality asserted. [3]
When Fanghur says that arguments should be based upon data and "not on blind speculation regarding things that are currently beyond our ability to test, and hence which we have zero basis to make any sort of probability estimation regarding," he is telling us that he thinks arguments are scientific experiments. He says it even more blatantly in a second post: "Pat, the point is that when one is trying to determine what the most logical explanation for something is, all presuppositions other than those that are logically inescapable should be set aside right from the get go; that is one of the defining necessities of scientific discovery and thinking, and something that Craig categorically does not do." He compares arguments to scinece, implies that their purpose is discovery, and asserts that arguments that argue for something are seen as "ciruclar reasoning." Never mind the fact that all atheist seem to start form the point that there can't be a God and any evidence for God is not evidence but must be wrong. That's not ciruclar, but it's circular if you are know what you are arguing for?
I suggest that science itself can't survive without "top down reasoning." they are confusing form of argument with the nature of logic. and the nature of logic with science. It's a truncated ideologically bound form of scinece that is calculated form the Atheist truth regime. Top down reasoning means that a top of the metaphysical hierarchy determines the bottom terms. So that a premise determines a conclusion is part of top down reasoning.
This whole discussion is predated upon the atheist assumption that there can't be anything but physical causes in reality. That physical causes are facts and have only to be observed to be understood clearly. They are totally in the dark as to the framed nature of any understanding of interpreted data. In other words is the no pure data objectively observed that is free from interpretation and frame work. They are privileging doubt about God. They can't beat the God arguments when logic is used fairly and in its classical sense, so they have to destroy logic as we know it and reduce it to quasi scientific experiment in order to get around the kind of logic that beats their arguments in defense of belief. No God argument that I use or that I know of begins with the assumption "God has to exist." The Kalam argument begins with the assumption that everything that is, and that exists contingently, has a cause that necessitates its existence. Then it assumes that anything coming into existence must have a cause. This is predicated upon the concepts of necessity and contingency. That is "top down" because it assumes that one term is at the top of the metaphysical order and it necessitates terms that are below it, or that dependent upon it for their existence. These are the assumptions they don't want us to make.
They read those as assumptions that there must be a God. They are not the assumptions of God, they are assumptions from which we can derive the conclusion that there must be a God. That is fair and logical, provided we can pull it off in the nature of the argument. They object because it doesn't privilege their view. That's the only way know to do logic is to privileged their own view. The assumption that things need causes is not unfair nor is it illogical. It's mere the result of all of our experience. We have no counters to that experience. Even quantum particles don't coutner that experience because as David Albert showed in his brilliant review of Krauss's book (the Universe from Nothing) nothing is not really noting, it comes form prior conditions and prior particles which must still be expalined.[4] They are causes of more particles. thus everything we know is the product of a cause and thus it is not illogical that all things that are contingent need cause. Of course that doesn't mean God means a cause since God is not contingent. The rub is that this is in line with the atheist assumption that they can only buy logic that's based upon empirical assumptions. This is an empirical assumptions, it's i line with all our observations. Confronted with an empirical assumption they refuse to accept it and try to make it seem unfairly privileging belief in God.
That's because they can't stand the logical conclusion that flows from it, that there must be a God. Thus they rebel agaisnt logic itself.
Sources
[1] Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London, New York:Routledge Classics, original English publication 1959 by Hutchison and co. by Routldege 1992. On line copy URL: http://www.cosmopolitanuniversity.ac/library/LogicofScientificDiscoveryPopper1959.pdf digital copy by Cosmo oedu visited 2/6/2012, p4
[2] https://www.google.com/#q=what+is+an+argument
[3] Rohan, "The Toulmin model of Argument." Website by Sandiego State University: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~digger/305/toulmin_model.htm
[4] David Albert, “On the Origin of Everything ‘a Universe form Nothing’ by Lawrence Krauss,” New York Times Sunday Book Review (March 23, 2012). On line version URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html visited June 20, 2012. David Albert also has a Ph.D. in theoretical phsyics.
see also my article form this blog on Albert's review of Krauss.
Metacrock's Blog,"Review and Debnucking of Lawrence Krauss's A Unvierse From Nothing,"
Thursday, January 10, 2013, URL: http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-and-debnucking-of-lawrence.html
Monday, August 04, 2014
Rational Warrant vs Reasonable Doubt
I thought this would be a good little diaoauge which tries to pin down exactly where the progress is vis Rational Warrant. I think the upshot of this is that the atheist is privileging doubt.
"What's his face" on CARM
WHF:
your warrant to think God might not exist is not as strong as my warrant that he does.Meta:
Oh yes it is... Notice I offered just as much justification for my statement as you did for yours.[/quote]
hardly. where are your 200 studies? You don't have a single argument that works by deductive logic or model logic. you don't have any emprical evidence. you have not one single study to back up disbelief in god.
all you really have is suspicion that there may not be a God. you have no actual postiive reasons for thinking there is not. I do have postiive reasons for thinking there is.
*my reasons correlate with personal experience that back doctrine.
*they are lined up with the rationale of deductive reason
*they are backed by empirical data
*they give more than a prima facie reaosn for accepting the co-determiante
* I have 8 tie breakers that the RE argument away from naturalistic brain chemistry alone.
* my RE fit the criteria we use for epistemic judgement
less than proof is ok. it it doesn't have to be proof it need not be proof.
WHF:
Meta:
WHF:
It depends on how less than proof. Can you say how less than proof your argument is exactly, and why? I would accept beyond a reasonable doubt, such as the Earth orbits the Sun, which your case does not reach.
Meta:
calling inconclusive is misleading becuase "conclusive" is in the eye of the beholder.
WHF:
Meta:If, within the case you make "conclusive" is in the eye of the beholder, it's not conclusive.
any impartial observer would have to give it to the one that has either the empirical data or the deductive edge. tie breakers have to count.
most people's reasons for being atheists are personal and emotional and not satisfying for real thinkers.
WHF:
Meta:No Meta, this is horribly wrong. It's all about standards of evidence. Personal and emotional are more in the realm of believers.
no it's backed by several empirical studies and mound of empirical research around the concept of God image and self esteem. not just that one Lesie Francis study.
Originally Posted by Whatsisface
Meta:
now you are trying to bring proof in the back door. "Reasonable doubt" is not the limit on warrant. Neither is a reasonable doubt predicated upon a feeling of doubt. I don't think you have a reasonable doubt. you have a strong sense of doubt but how is that reasonable? It can't be backed up by reason. Yes you can give m e reasons but I disprove most of them.
It's going to reduce to a non demonstrable sense that you have in your gut vs. what I think are valid reasons that you deny as valid becuase they dont' jibe with your gut. then you are going to deny that it's intuitive and calim that it's "reason." In reality you can't ground your doubt in reason.
WHF:
You are one of the few here who actually tries to make a case for the existence of God but surely even you would admit it doesn't take you as far as beyond a reasonable doubt?
Meta:
My feeling is warrant is permissive not compulsive. so I think it comes down t a purely existential matter. No one is trying to make you bleieve if you don't want to, don't. your not wanting to believe cannot be construed as disproof of my warrant for belief.
WHF:
Can you see how you have not answered my question?Meta:
ok try it again:
WHF:
I asked you this...
Whatshisface:...It depends on how less than proof. Can you say how less than proof your argument is exactly, and why? I would accept beyond a reasonable doubt, such as the Earth orbits the Sun, which your case does not reach.
You answered with...
Metacrock...I have 200 empirical studies. you have bogus arguments like "no scientific evidence" taken out by the 200 studies.
Can you see how you have not answered my question? You have not said how less than proof your argument is and importantly, how you know this.
Meta:
He has not proved that room for doubt, which does still exist, mandates doubt as an unalterable course, nor does that room negate the validity of the postive reasons for belief.
Get answers to these questions when you buy the Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for belief, by Joseph Hinman, available on Amazon.