Kent Symanzik

Hi rw,

You do not need to conciously know God in order to make value judgements. We take these things for granted. But, we can make value judgements because we were make in the image of God. God made us rational beings.

The standard of morality is not separate from God's character. He cannot change the standard of morality any more than He can change himself. The greek gods held a standard outside of themselves. That is why they have a dilemma.

Kent

Goliath

Kent Symanzik,

Are you going to continue to repeat your assertions over and over again, ad nauseum, or are you going to surprise us all, and actually give an argument or two to back up any of those assertions?

Sincerely,

Goliath

K

Kent:

The laws of logic are not universal. They are based on axioms (assumptions) that appear to give meaningful results when applied to certain domains within our observable universe.

As in any descriptive formal system, the axioms on which logic is based can not be proven using the laws of logic. Therefore, logic is fundamentally not universal.

The laws of Euclidean Geometry had long been considered universal. But by altering one of the axioms, namely that parallel lines don't intersect, mathematicians were able to develop new kinds of geometry. Amazingly, it now appears that the universe is fundamentally non-Euclidean. Logic and geometry are both just descriptive systems which are only as useful as the utility they provide in describing the observable universe.

There are plenty of domains where logic breaks down. For instance, quantum mechanics is described better when the indeterminate state is allowed. This isn't available in standard True-False logic.

Keith Russell

Kent, you are contradicting yourself.

You said:
"I'm not sure what additional reasoning you need. The Christian God who is the creator and sustainer of all things is rational and created all things that way."

Then, you also said:
"Atheistic foundations are all irrational."

Kent, if 'God' made all things rational, then there cannot be anything which is irrational.

And yet, you claim that atheistic foundations are...

Keith.

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]</p>

daemon

Thanks for getting back to me, Kent. I understand it can be a bit time consuming to communicate with all of us, but your efforts are appreciated.
To a degree, yes. You can't reasonably prove a presupposition; to attempt to do so would be to engage in circular logic, which is not reasonable.

As to why I see the Christian presupposition as arbitrary, I have no reason to believe it, nor have you presented any. If there is no reason behind it, it is arbitrary.
I'm not saying you need any further reasoning; I was just hoping to ensure that you realize that this is assertion, and not proven.
Very well, then I will present you with one; simply establish as a primary axiom that logic works. There is your foundation.
This doesn't even make sense. "Rational" is not an adjective that can even apply to "creation." This appears akin to complaining that atheism claims that zero is not blue. Further, "the atheistic view" appears to be a strawman. I consider my view atheistic, but I do not believe the world "happened by chance."
You are correct. Rationality is a property of thoughts, ideas, arguments, and the like, not of universes, in as far as I know.
Assuming reason, presuppositions cannot be rationally justified; that's why they're presuppositions and not conclusions.

sir drinks-a-lot

The universe itself is neither fundamentally Euclidean nor fundamentally non-Euclidean. As you said in your second sentence, geometries are just descriptions - and either one could be used to describe physical space. The choice, while not completely arbitrary, is just a matter of convention.

K

sir-drinks-alot:

That is correct. I should have said that Euclidean geometry is a tool that is not as useful on the cosmological scale as other non-Euclidean geometries. Good catch.

sir drinks-a-lot

Kent,

I see alot of posters here asking the same questions. Maybe you can indulge us and start a new thread detailing your position?

I am unclear on what you mean by saying the universal laws of logic are not accounted for by the atheist worldview. As far as the laws of logic that one learns in a first semester logic class (modus tollens, the law of non contradiction, etc...), I think we agree that these were formulated by humans. Later on, we learn other more complex systems, and we learn that the basic laws of logic are only syntax, but we may come up with interpretations or real world phenomenon that are isomorphic to the relations of the logical symbols. Which Universal Laws of Logic are you referring to? How many are there? Can you list several?

When I posted the Bernard Lonergan argument before, you asked about his use of the word "intelligible" - I think that for our purposes, you can substitute the phrase "able to be understood."

As I said above, I think the laws of logic were created by humans. Are you asking why, in the Atheist worldview, the world is such that these laws hold? If so, isn't your statement that the laws of logic are the way God thinks just an application of the God of the Gaps argument? After all, presupposing the Christian worldview does not enble one to derive further laws of logic. The laws of modern logic are not found by studying the bible.

Jack the Bodiless

Rationality arises from irrationality all the time. All of the 6 billion people on this planet, and all the billions who lived before this time, developed rationality and some sort of logic system despite developing from irrational, mindless sperm and ova.

Therefore, what is the basis of your non-acceptance of the possibility that rational creatures can evolve from non-rational ones?

All that's required is random variation, plus a sustained selection pressure which favors the survival and reproduction of those who are more capable of constructing and using a perceptual and conceptual model of their environment.

Marz Blak

I made this same point a number of posts earlier, only I used human evolution from a presumably non-sentient species. I thought he didn't answer me because he perhaps rejected evolution, but this way of providing a counter-example is not subject to rejection on such grounds; so maybe you'll have better luck than I in getting him to actually respond in an intellectually substantive way.