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06-05-2004, 05:53 PM | #131 | |
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Naw, just kidding. I was totally wrong on the name thing, and withdraw my point (4) to Robert unreservedly. But I want you to know that I had a BLT for lunch for that very reason. In any case, "slimy little fuck" is an utterly unacceptable form of address. I would never say such a thing -- having no evidence as to your size. |
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06-05-2004, 07:34 PM | #132 |
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ClutCh - Sorry Must have been a freudian slip
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06-05-2004, 08:46 PM | #133 |
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The hardest question ever asked ... or ever will be asked, apparently
I'll rephrase my main question. Does some proponent p for the inerrancy of some text t assume the burden of proving the inerrancy of t given the presence of 'surface anomalies' in t? If so, why? Surely someone here is informed on the matter. Then again ...
<cue cricket noise> Regards, BGic |
06-05-2004, 09:48 PM | #134 | |
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"If I keep repeating the question, it must mean that nobody's answered it!"
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What do you suppose has gone unanswered, at this point? |
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06-06-2004, 12:11 AM | #135 |
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Blt to go,
I am disappointed that you feel that way, I was hoping for a very good discussion with you. Gentleman, Please allow me to strip this down to the very basic parts. The definition of inerrancy that Vinnie elected to use during our debate was the Chicago Statement. In it's most simplistic terms, that statement says that the Bible is true. Therefore, this is the question that we are asking: Is the Bible true or is the Bible not true? (Hang on to this question for a second) If we ask ourselves if there is a God, there are only three options available by way of an answer. A. There is no God. B. There is a God but he has not revealed himself to us. C. There is a God and he has revealed himself to us. Now, we have all already picked one. All three are presumptions. They are presumptions because there is no empirical data to prove ANY of them. Therefore, we must use reason to justify why we picked the option we picked. When we pick one, this becomes our ultimate presupposition. The ultimate answer to the ultimate question; is there a God? Now, let's ask ourselves the question. Is the Bible true or is the Bible not true? There are only three possible answers based on our selection above: A. There is no God, therefore the Bible cannot be true. B. There is a God but he has not revealed himself to us, therefore the Bible cannot be true. C. There is a God and he has revealed himself to us, therefore the Bible can only be true. The only way to validate the answer to the question of whether or not the Bible is true is to validate our ultimate presupposition. Which presupposition justifies all that we find and use in this world? (i.e. universals, empirical data....etc...) I have chosen option C. Since I have chosen option C, I MUST presume the verity of the Biblical authors. If someone chooses options A or B they CANNOT presume the verity of the Biblical authors. Thus, I will treat the text differently than someone who has chosen options A or B and debating specific text is useless. Therefore, when we get into a discussion on whether or not the Bible is true, we MUST FIRST validate our ultimate presumptions. When I said that "my presumption is my argument", the simplified version is, "if you start with my ultimate presupposition you will come to this conclusion". I cannot strip this down any more than I just have. At this point, I would like to invite anyone to e-mail me if they wish to discuss. All I ask is for you to be honest and open to cross-examination. Thank you to all for discussing this with me and I apologize if I have offended anyone. Robert |
06-06-2004, 07:34 AM | #136 | |
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what does your position reduce to?
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RobertLW, for what it is worth, I agree with you that the divide between theist and atheist here is not so much hermeneutical/exegetical as it is philosophical. Regards, BGic |
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06-06-2004, 07:41 AM | #137 | |||
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Your idea of reasoning as a matter of post hoc rationalization of a "pick" may be autobiographically accurate, but is just plain silly as a generalization over everyone else. And your claim that taking a view on theism becomes an "ultimate presupposition" is left gloriously innocent of any justification whatever. Indeed, what this notion of ultimate presupposition could even mean is opaque -- for reasons that I broached some posts back, and which were presented with rather greater clarity by blt to go, as well. Quote:
How about, There is a god (or several, or several thousand), but the bible's purported depictions of him/her/it/them/newt are wholly or partly false? This is crux of the whole matter, after all. The question of a god's existence is entirely orthogonal to the question of whether any particular text is wholly correct. You can be a devout theist all day long while finding powerful reason to reject any purportedly holy text as flawed; the belief that there is a god, and that the evidence supports this, simply fails to imply that "the bible can only be true". So the bible's truth cannot be levered out of your commitment to theism; it has to be assessed on its merits as a text, in accordance with the standards for belief that we deploy when considering any text -- or indeed, things more generally. Of course, as soon as we do that, the wheels fall off the wagon. We're left with just one more assemblage of theologically-inflected stories known to be largely false: Norse, Greek, Abrahamic, Mayan... |
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06-06-2004, 07:47 AM | #138 | |
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Yet again, I don't see what has been left unsaid. I think that if the prima facie evidence is that P, then it is rational to believe that P unless countervailing evidence appears. The appearance of flaws warrants the defeasible judgement that there are flaws; the inerrantist then inherits the obligation to defeat that appearance. This all seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? |
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06-07-2004, 06:56 AM | #139 | |
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06-07-2004, 07:37 AM | #140 | |
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Robert's verity argument isn't even coherent. Aside from being built on one or more factually incorrect presuppositions the conclusion built off of them is also a non-sequitur fallacy (I demonstrated both of these problems already). Vinnie |
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