Jack the Bodiless

Theophilus:

We've been around the block with all this stuff before. So why are we rehashing it all again, just as if you've never been here before?

Firstly, "creation science" is neither a theory nor a hypothesis. It is a falsehood.

To put it simply: a hypothesis is an idea which appears to explain something, but which hasn't been thoroughly tested yet.

If it can be tested and passes these tests, it is upgraded to a "theory". It is an explanation which fits the facts very well, and there is no evidence which contradicts it. There is a high likelihood that it is true. Scientists are reluctant to declare that it IS true, because there is always the possibility that some other theory might be devised that is just as good, or better.

If it fails testing, it is a falsehood. If it is not compatible with the evidence, then it cannot be true.

For instance, if I develop the notion that the Moon is made of rock, this is a hypothesis until the Moon's substance is analyzed. This analysis allows me to upgrade the hypothesis to a "theory". The alternative hypothesis that the Moon is made of green cheese will become a falsehood.

Biblical creationism is as false as flat-Earthism, lunar green-cheeseism, sky-is-red-ism, and so forth. This is why it belongs in the dustbin of history. It has been disproved by the evidence that contradicts it.

But Christian presuppositionalism is a form of delusional insanity in which real-world evidence "doesn't matter" anymore. Only this level of detachment from reality allows creationism to appear tenable.

Jack the Bodiless

Secondly: presuppositionalism is a lie.

The presuppositionalist, like everyone else, begins with the primary assumption that perception and reason are reliable. You are lying to us (and to yourself) when you state that the Biblical God is the basis of your worldview. Without the primary assumption of the reliability of your senses, you have no means of knowing that the Bible exists, or that it says what you think it does.

Your subsequent supposition, that the Biblical God is the reason your senses are reliable, is no more profound than my own supposition that evolution is the reason MY senses are reliable. There is no basis for the claim that your worldview is superior to mine in this regard.

Jack the Bodiless

Thirdly: Christian presuppositionalism is theologically unsound.

There is no Biblical guarantee that the Christian's perception and reason will be reliable. This reliability is not guaranteed by God.

God is a deceiver. He created evil. And he allows bad things to happen to good people for inscrutable reasons.

Philosoft

I bet if you show scientists a way to do "creation science," you would have legitimate creation scientists in no time. Scientists are not in the habit of excluding legitimate areas of study for any reason.
Interesting. That's about as dogmatic as you can be.

Is it? I don't make any positive ontological claims about the origin of life, only that supernatural explanations are unwarranted on their own merits, or lack thereof.

But how do we justify stating a creation hypothesis without knowing what designed entities look like? Go check out the E/C forum, there are at least as many indicators of inept design as there are of so-called "intelligent" design.

Doesn't the idea that man is created in God's "image" imply ontological similarity?

This belies a severe misunderstanding of biological evolution. In any case, it's off topic, so if you wish to promote this view, I suggest you do it in the E/C forum.

Read something, anything, by Dawkins. Then take this criticism over to E/C, and make sure you wear your flak-jacket.

When did ICR become a representative sample of "most [creation] advocates"? You realise your Christian-tinted glasses are causing you to see only a few pixels of the proverbial big picture, yes?

Oxymoron

God has just spoken to me and told me that you are utterly and pathetically wrong in every respect imaginable. Discuss.

Jobar

Well! For a minute there I thought I was in E/C instead of EoG.

We can split this thread, and move the posts about creationism and ID to a new E/C thread. It will make the conversation here a bit harder to follow, so I will not do this *unless* we get more posts on the subject. And Theophilus, I suggest you don't take that guff to E/C; they'd flatten you like a steamroller.

Now. I have gone through Theo's posts from the last several pages, and extracted some of the most egregious errors. Some of them have been well addressed by others, but since it helps to have many different expressions of complex ideas I'll add my own few cents' worth.

If the scientific "method" is inherently flawed, i.e., based on a logical fallacy, no amount of "self-correction" changes that. Without knowing the fundamental nature of reality from the outset, science can never arrive at knowledge at all, let alone coming close to "truth."

You have not demonstrated any logical fallacy. And as has been pointed out to you in many ways, scientific knowledge makes no claims of Ultimate Truth. You can't or won't get that into your head, it seems. Your statement above shows it; "...the fundamental nature of reality... " And again-

In order to make any authoritative statement, science would have to have a comprehensive knowledge of all reality and all possiibility. I hope you will acknowledge that it doesn't.

See? "*Comprehensive* knowledge of *all* reality." "*All* possibility." "*Authoritative* {=absolute or ultimate} statement.

I don't "suppose" anything about God. I only know what he has chosen to reveal about himself in the bible. I know he is logical because his creation, including human intellect, reflects his character.

So, a presupposition is not a supposition, eh? Theo, all you are saying is that you believe what you believe because you believe it, and no evidence will ever change your mind. You really can't see that you have it backwards- that God's character reflects human intellect because he is a creation of human intellect?


The scientific method does not operate in a vacuum. It is based on certain assumptions, unprovable, about the nature of reality, the reliability of sense perception and intellectual processes as interpreters of data. Therefore, every scientist operates as a philosopher and every scientific statement has a philosophical aspect.

True enough. We *have* been telling you this, you know. But the only *unproveable* assumption we make is that we aren't brains in bottles. And, the more knowledge we accumulate, this possibility becomes less and less likely- because we don't see any discontinuity in sensory experience- some glitch in the information being inputted into our disembodied brains. The longer our senses stay self-consistent, the more unlikely solipsism becomes (without, note, ever becoming absolutely impossible!)

The fact that God's communication is mediated through and comprehended by my intellect does not establish the authority of that communication.

I accept its authority as the necessary pre-requisite for all knowledge, so I cannot prejudge it by some other standard.

Its authority establishes the trustworthiness of my experience, not the other way around.

The question is, how does your presuppositon, your own cognition, provide any basis for knowledge, seeing it cannot validate itself?

Gibberish. You experience God's communication (or so you claim); you don't God's communication experience! You are using precisely the same assumption we do- you are trusting your senses to tell you what that "authority" is, every time you read your scriptures.

The "accepting" does not have to be, and cannot be, naturalistically understood. This is a spiritual consideration which goes beyond the scope of this discussion.

So you say you can't tell us how you commune with your God? Then why are you posting all this stuff??

Or are you saying that it is off this particular topic? If that's it, please feel free to start a topic where you tell us about it.

You do not arrive at your presuppositon by cognitive processes. You assume, without being aware of the process, that you are self-sufficient to discover truth.

That is simply wrong, Theo. We realize through our pursuit of philosophical concepts that all our experience of reality comes through our senses. We even have a name for the idea that there is no actual reality outside our own sensorium- solipsism. That should be sufficient proof that we do *not* simply assume, unexamined, our philosophical foundations.

I think that you are the one making unexamined assumptions here. And, like many (perhaps all) believers, the thought of examining those presumptions is so frightening to you that you go to incredible, irrational lengths to avoid it.

Oolon Colluphid

Jobar, I’d be delighted to see Theo in E/C. But meanwhile, may I take these bits here? Oops, looks like I have!
Hogwash.

Evolution is a change in allele frequency in a population over time. You will find that even most creationists do not deny that bit. Search for Peter Grant and Galapagos finches.

Such evolution, up to and beyond speciation, has been observed. See Observed Instances of Speciation.

You will also find that, though creationists rarely define ‘kind’, it is generally considered to be some group much larger than species. ‘Baraminologist’ Kurt Wise is on record as saying it is more or less the Linnaean grouping of ‘family’, which makes musk oxen and chevrotains, gemsboks and sheep the same kind, ie descended by evolution from a common ancestor. Creationists accept a big chunk of evolution.

And evolution is also observed, overwhelmingly, in the pattern of the fossil record. No feathered dinos before theropods; no birds before either; then birds, for instance. Feel free to discuss this further in E/C.
Please cite references for Darwinian gradualism meaning ‘constant speedism’. Other than that, you are utterly wrong.




Punk Eek is about the relative pace of evolution. It simply notes that evolution is not at a constant steady rate. It only contrasts with ‘constant speedism’... which nobody believed anyway. And note that Gould was as ardent a Darwinian as anybody. Please cite a full reference (not an out-of-context quote) where Gould denied the validity of Darwinian, generation-to-generation evolution.

Now. Get into E/C. Or else shut up about stuff of which you are ignorant. [edited by Wyz_sub10]

TTFN, DT

Jack the Bodiless

Interesting how much this presuppositionalist stuff contradicts the standard Christian view that "we'll find God if we search hard enough" (with the corollary that those who found nothing "weren't really looking").

The presuppositionalist doesn't look. In fact, he's convinced that looking is futile. He merely assumes that God exists, then closes his mind to any possibility that he could be wrong.

Oxymoron

Well, no reply to the above question, so here goes my analysis of the problem.

It is either true that God told me you were full of it, or it is not. I could have lied, after all. However, there is also the possibility that I only believe that it was God telling me it and I otherwise hold it as true. Clearly, you will be unable to distinguish that case from the situation where I point-blank lie about it.

Now assume that I adopt the same stance as you: I presuppose that this message is from God and that God's word is true. You, being a good xian, will (of course) be forced to conclude that this God is the same as yours because your theology is One God only. You can no more claim it to be Satan, because I could just as easily claim that Beelzebub was the guy whispering in your ear and - according to your own reasoning - there would be no way to distinguish who was who because there is, after all, only subjectivity according to you. But if it's all subjective, how could you know who was right?

So: either God has spoken to me and you are utterly wrong; or you are in a position where - because you presuppose that God and his Word are true stuff - you are unable to tell whether it really was God talking to you or not; or you retract this 'objectivity does not exist' argument because at the end of the day, you are still attempting to attribute the voice of God in your head to the God of the scriptures by objective means; or it's possible to believe stuff that's actually false; or you're a liar.

Interesting, huh?

the_cave

I have lived among Christians all my life, and I have never heard a single one of them make a claim anything like this.