Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Kent Symanzik · 08-21-2002, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by RogerLeeCooke:


Let's see, he died at 3PM Friday and was already resurrected by dawn on Sunday. How do you get 3 days out of that?

I should have said that he was resurrected on the third day.

Kent

sir drinks-a-lot · 08-21-2002, 04:59 PM

Hello Kent!

Quote:

Originally posted by Kent Symanzik:
It depends on the laws of logic so it is not ultimate. The logic would be something like this:
p1. We think logically.
p2. Our worldview must support logic.

This is getting towards the idea I am trying to express. How do you evaluate worldviews if you do not presuppose logic? What makes any worldview better than any other?

Quote:

Originally posted by Kent Symanzik:

This is a good question. I've had dialogues with people who tried to show that they could be an ultimate authority just like God. But, what happens is that as I challenge them they just describe themselves more and more like the Christian God of theism. Since the Christian God already exists and he says there is no other god then it would be impossible for the god sir drinks-a-lot to be a rational choice.

Well, if you have presupposed as your ultimate presupposition that I can answer all questions correctly, you cannot come to the conclusion that the Christian God exists. You may think he does through logic, but to determine the correct answer you will have to consult me. I am the ultimate authority in this worldview. Once you make the presupposition, you can no longer argue with me about anything. I can make inconsistent statements even, because I have more authority than any system of logic. This is what I meant arlier in the thread by saying that I think complete and consistent worldviews are trivial to construct.

Am I missing something here?

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: sir drinks-a-lot ]

snatchbalance · 08-21-2002, 05:24 PM

Kent,

Not to beat a dead horse, but i think you may be trying to be intentionaly evasive. to make the JC/hypocrite point as clear as possible:

1. A hypocrite makes one profession, and then dose something in opposition to that profession.

2. JC says, "don't judge"; but then judges and damns. Hence, he is a hypocrite.

3. As this is a human trait, anyone can emulate JC in this regard. There is nothing that precludes a human from being hypocritical.

4. So, the question remains, should one emulate JC as a hypocrite? If not, how does one know when to be like JC, and when not to be like JC?

sb

Kent Symanzik · 08-21-2002, 05:51 PM

Hi snatchbalance,

I'm not intentionally trying to be evasive. I apologize for not being clearer.

Quote:

Originally posted by snatchbalance:
Not to beat a dead horse, but i think you may be trying to be intentionaly evasive. to make the JC/hypocrite point as clear as possible:

1. A hypocrite makes one profession, and then dose something in opposition to that profession.

2. JC says, "don't judge"; but then judges and damns. Hence, he is a hypocrite.

3. As this is a human trait, anyone can emulate JC in this regard. There is nothing that precludes a human from being hypocritical.

4. So, the question remains, should one emulate JC as a hypocrite? If not, how does one know when to be like JC, and when not to be like JC?

The assumption you are making is that Jesus is also commanding himself not to judge. I don't think you can get that from the text. Furthermore, I believe Jesus is specifically commanding not to judge hypocritically. Jesus as God cannot be hypocritical in his judgements because God is perfect. To be a hypocritical judge you would have to be judging people for things that you are also guilty of.

In an attempt to be more clear here is an example. If I command my daughter to go to bed. Am I being hypocritical if I do not also go to bed? Of course not. My command was to her, not to me. The same with Jesus. His command was to his followers, not to himself.

Now, I know that you do not believe the bible teaches that Jesus is God whereas I do. I think this may be the source of us misunderstanding eachother.

If I'm still not clear ask more questions. We will beat this dead horse!

Kent

Kent Symanzik · 08-21-2002, 06:03 PM

Hi sir drinks-a-lot,

Quote:

Originally posted by sir drinks-a-lot:
Kent: It depends on the laws of logic so it is not ultimate. The logic would be something like this:
p1. We think logically.
p2. Our worldview must support logic.

This is getting towards the idea I am trying to express. How do you evaluate worldviews if you do not presuppose logic? What makes any worldview better than any other?

True, logic has to be in your web of beliefs.

Quote:

Well, if you have presupposed as your ultimate presupposition that I can answer all questions correctly, you cannot come to the conclusion that the Christian God exists. You may think he does through logic, but to determine the correct answer you will have to consult me. I am the ultimate authority in this worldview. Once you make the presupposition, you can no longer argue with me about anything. I can make inconsistent statements even, because I have more authority than any system of logic. This is what I meant arlier in the thread by saying that I think complete and consistent worldviews are trivial to construct.

Am I missing something here?

One thing that I think you are missing is that you cannot make inconsistent statements. In other words, you cannot be a foundation for the laws of logic if you violate the laws of logic.

In the Christian worldview, the laws of logic are not ultimate but they are justified by the ultimate character of God. If God was not rational then we would the laws of logic would not have a foundation.

This is why I say that if we presuppose you as our ultimate authority then you would need all the attributes of the Christian God. You would have to be perfect, absolute, and invariant. And since I've already seen you make typing mistakes you must be ruled out as a valid ultimate presupposition

Kent

TooBad · 08-21-2002, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kent Symanzik:
.
In the Christian worldview, the laws of logic are not ultimate but they are justified by the ultimate character of God. If God was not rational then we would the laws of logic would not have a foundation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but presumably you would regard the statement "God is rational" as a true and informative statement about God's character.

But for this to be so, then there must be some independent standard of rationality against which God can be measured. In which case, God is not the ultimate foundation of the "laws of logic".

Alternatively, if "God is rational" is held to be an analytic statement, i.e. true by definition, then it would apply regardless of the way God actually thinks and behaves. Anything God thinks and does would have to be regarded as rational, even a blatant contradiction.

Offhand, I can think of no other way in which "God is rational" can be held to be true.
So I submit that it is either (a) false, (b) devoid of information content, or (c) incompatible with the view that rationality is founded on God's nature.

snatchbalance · 08-22-2002, 04:02 AM

Kent,

Quote:

4. So, the question remains, should one emulate JC as a hypocrite? If not, how does one know when to be like JC, and when not to be like JC?

OK, so by your standards it is not possible for JC to be hypocrital because he knows all. So, in this instance I should not emulate jc, I should not judge.

But, by that logic, because people never have perfect knowledge, people should never judge.

So, the second question remains, how does one know when to be like JC?

sb

Kent Symanzik · 08-22-2002, 08:36 AM

Hi TooBad,

Quote:

Originally posted by TooBad:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but presumably you would regard the statement "God is rational" as a true and informative statement about God's character.

But for this to be so, then there must be some independent standard of rationality against which God can be measured. In which case, God is not the ultimate foundation of the "laws of logic".

Alternatively, if "God is rational" is held to be an analytic statement, i.e. true by definition, then it would apply regardless of the way God actually thinks and behaves. Anything God thinks and does would have to be regarded as rational, even a blatant contradiction.

Offhand, I can think of no other way in which "God is rational" can be held to be true.
So I submit that it is either (a) false, (b) devoid of information content, or (c) incompatible with the view that rationality is founded on God's nature.

In the Christian worldview, God is necessary for the laws of logic. It is true by definition that God is rational. The laws of logic are dependent on how God thinks. The way God thinks is the definition of rational. Trying to imagine God as being different and therefore the laws of logic being different will lead to absurdities. God is the kind of God he is and necessarily so.

I don't understand your problem with the statement "God is rational" being analytical and therefore devoid of informational content. If it was a synthetical statement it would no longer be true by definition but rather at best a probability.

Kent

Kent Symanzik · 08-22-2002, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by snatchbalance:
Kent,

OK, so by your standards it is not possible for JC to be hypocrital because he knows all. So, in this instance I should not emulate jc, I should not judge.

But, by that logic, because people never have perfect knowledge, people should never judge.

I think Jesus commanded not to judge hypocritically. This doesn't mean we are not to judge at all.

Quote:

So, the second question remains, how does one know when to be like JC?

Try to be like Christ whenever it is humanly possible. We are not God.

Kent

snatchbalance · 08-22-2002, 09:22 AM

Kent,

Quote:

I think Jesus commanded not to judge hypocritically. This doesn't mean we are not to judge at all.

But how can we know if we are being hypocritical or not? God has complete knowledge, we never do.

How can we judge "scribes and Pharises" when they're only other people, just like us?

sb

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

08-21-2002, 05:24 PM	#193
snatchbalance Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: CT Posts: 333	Kent, Not to beat a dead horse, but i think you may be trying to be intentionaly evasive. to make the JC/hypocrite point as clear as possible: 1. A hypocrite makes one profession, and then dose something in opposition to that profession. 2. JC says, "don't judge"; but then judges and damns. Hence, he is a hypocrite. 3. As this is a human trait, anyone can emulate JC in this regard. There is nothing that precludes a human from being hypocritical. 4. So, the question remains, should one emulate JC as a hypocrite? If not, how does one know when to be like JC, and when not to be like JC? sb

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.