Doug Shaver

So what? You're starting out with the assumption that everything the Bible says is true. You're using the Bible to prove the Bible. That is circular reasoning -- which, I have noticed, is extremely popular with Christian apologists.

Doug Shaver

Some skeptics like to play the how-it-could-have-happened game, but I've never found it necessary. I have never seen any good evidence for the occurrence of a single miracle at any place or at any time in the history of the world. Until I do, there is nothing I need to explain.

Helpmabob

Hi Doug – Strictly speaking, I am proving nothing here.

We use math to prove things in math and no-one complains. Another way of demonstrating mathematical correctness is to try out loads of possibilities and check that they all fit the criteria demanded by the formulae being interrogated. This is a less perfect proving method, because there is always the chance that a set of variables that would contravene the proof have not been tried. With the Bible, there is no absolute proof, but this try it and see approach bears fruit.

Sven

See, that's exactly my point: You can not be sure. Even what you think you have dicovered about the bible and god could be a ploy of the devil.

Positing a (very potent) deceiver automatically ends in solipsism.

Sven

Nice babbly - which does not address the fact in the slightest that you use circular reasoning.

Doug Shaver

That was sort of my point, but are you trying to say that you're not even making an attempt to show us why we ought to believe what you believe? If so, then what are you trying to accomplish here?

Mathematicians don't use circular arguments. Their arguments begin with axioms. Those axioms are clearly identified as such. Furthermore, they are chosen judiciously, not arbitrarily. They are universally accepted for good reasons. Further still more, some of those axioms are discarded in certain situations when there is a good reason to discard them.

I don't know what you're trying to claim here, but it seems to have something to do with applied mathematics. Applications do not test mathematics. They test the theories that use mathematics to predict observations. Observations that are inconsistent with predictions force revision of theories, not of mathematics.

If you assume the Bible to be inerrant, then no observation can be inconsistent with it. When I did the try it and see approach, I didn't make that assumption, and what I saw did not agree with the Bible.