jbernier

Because it is the crux of your argument as you initially stated it: "If the truth of the proposition 'baby-torture is wrong' is not known due to reasoning or experience then it must be known intuitively" and your P2 appears to have been." If we accept your statement then the following statement must also be accepted: "If the truth of the proposition 'baby-torture is wrong' is known due to reasoning or experience then it is not necessary that it must be known intuitively." You argued "If not A then B"; I am arguing "If A then not necessarily B". There is no non sequiter there.

And you are right: I am confused. The reason for that confusion, from my perspective, is that you said one thing then, when I responded to that statement, you said "No, I did not say that" or "No, you do not understand what I said." But I know perfectly well what you said: "If not A then B." And I am responding to that by saying "If A then not necessarily B." The above quotation is directly from you and all I am doing is showing what it what take to falsify your argument and offering such falsification. If you are going to change what you said in mid-stream then there is no point in continuing this discussion and we should just agree to disagree (although I still have no real idea what it is with which I am disagreeing).

Cross Examiner

jbernier,
1. I originally said moral intuition, as exemplified by the innate knowledge that baby-torture is wrong, is analogous to the sensus divinatus which I describe as one of the predicating epistemological factors to my belief in Biblical inerrancy.
2. You then said that such knowledge is not innate since the term 'torture' is 'historically conditioned'.
3. I then point out the fact that this response of yours is the quintessential non sequitur.

Your move.

Regards,
BGic

jbernier

No, BGiC, that is not what you originally said. I have quoted what you originally said and it is not what you claim to have originally said. Thus I must repeat:

"If you are going to change what you said in mid-stream then there is no point in continuing this discussion and we should just agree to disagree (although I still have no real idea what it is with which I am disagreeing)."

That is my move: To say that I am no longer participating in a soccer game in which the goalposts keep moving.

Craigart14

Biblical inerrancy is one of the five fundamentals in Fundamentalism. To be "saved" in a Fundamentalist church, one must accept all five. The term refers not to "truth and message," but to literal truth without error. If you accept errors in the Bible, then you do not believe in Biblical inerrancy as the term is commonly used and as it has been--and still is--defined by Fundamentalist dogma. To say that the Bible is "inerrant in its truth and message" is to admit that one is interpreting the Bible--just as all the Christian sects who disagree with each other do. An interpretation can never be inerrant.

The other day I was at the hospital for a blood test. I picked up a children's book about God in the waiting room. It said that dinosaurs were created on the sixth day along with all the other animals. If one can deny the tons of scientific evidence showing that dinosaurs existed over 500,000,000 years ago and insist that man and dinosaurs were contemporaries, one might be an inerrantist.

Craig

Cross Examiner

No? You dispute that I know what I mean when I write what I write? This is fast becoming tedious, jb. Allright. I'll (highlight) seven important terms that my first and second statements share in order to show you (it is astonishing that I have to do this for you) that I do not 'change the goalposts' between the two. Originally (1), I said here that:
which I then clarified for you here as meaning:
which you now charge as 'changing the goalposts' on you. You say that I am changing what I said but, clearly, you are confused again. Now, as I said earlier, the following reflects the state of our disagreement:
1. I originally said moral intuition, as exemplified by the innate knowledge that baby-torture is wrong, is analogous to the sensus divinatus which I describe as one of the predicating epistemological factors to my belief in Biblical inerrancy.
2. You then said that such knowledge is not innate since the term 'torture' is 'historically conditioned'.
3. I then point out the fact that this response of yours is the quintessential non sequitur.

Your move.

Regards,
BGic

jbernier

Whatever.

I am no longer participating in this discussion.

Cross Examiner

'Whatever', you say? The ethical, respectable response to my demonstration of the fact that I remain consistent, contra your insinuation otherwise, would have been something more like: 'Cleary, I was wrong to insinuate you as dishonest and inconsistent. Mea culpa.'
So we may take it then that you do not wish to rectify your counter-argument from non sequitur? Of course. Why should you go down with your ship?

Regards,
BGic

blt to go

BGic - that last post's statements are beneath you. I would have expected better "baiting" than that!

I did not take jbernier as stating you were "dishonest and inconsistent," as much as incoherent.

You initially gave four reasons for your basis in belief in inerrancy. Reason number one (which you carefully pointed out was deliberately number one was "intuition.")

I described this word, "intuition" as I understood it (commonly referred to as a "gut-feeling") to which you took exception, stating this most definitely NOT was the same definition of intution you were using. You stated your "intuition" was analogous to the "intuitive" moral determination that baby-torture was wrong. (Which I would still call a "gut-feeling.")

I (personally) felt this analogy failed in light of the moral implications of Abraham & Isaac (i.e. a moral intuition that God deliberately desired Abraham to violate) and was looking forward to another, perhaps more clear, analogy. None was forthcoming.

jbernier went on a track that the "intuition" of god, being analogous to the "intuition" of moral values may be either a priori or a posteriori, and once such a value is in place, it is difficult for the person themselves to determine which.

It is the old, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did god give us knowledge, and that's why we know everything, or did we have knowledge first, and use god as an explanation for having knowledge? Bit hard to tell once you are on this side of the fence, if you know what I mean.

I am sorry, BGic, but after these long diatribes (and I am sure I'll be getting your "missing the point" soon. Again.) I still do not understand the difference between your "intuition" and my "gut-feeling."

I understand you are saying that intuitively you have "god-sense" that there is a god. The problem I (still) see is that Native Americans had a "spirit-sense" that all things have an individual spirit, that Muslims had a "god-sense" in Allah, Norsemen have a "heaven-sense" in Valhalla, Chinese HAVE no god-sense, (as I understand), Russians have a "vodka-sense," etc.

Is this not conditioned on where one grew up?

I am genuinely disappointed that we cannot get a clear, concise statement (from anyone) that answers Sven's original, three-word question--Why assume inerrancy?

jbernier

I do not think that evangelical discourse allows for one to admit that inerrancy is an assumption - hence why we cannot get a concise answer. I have seen a lot of hops being jumped in order to show that it is not an assumption but, really, they are just that: Hops. No one, surprisingly, has come up with that rhetorically sublime counter-question: "Why not?" Actually, it is perhaps the best response as it gets to the real heart of the matter: What is an assumption and how do we determine that some assumptions are better than others without reference to other assumptions?

blt to go

Actually, this was beaten to death in the thread the precipitated this one (peanut gallery). Then it was raised, beatenback to death. Then stomped, kicked, buried, hanged, drowned and generally killed.