Prof

Hi folks (as you can see I'm a new member, but I've been enjoying lurker status for quite a while).

I am an atheist who is involved in a debate with a Biblical Literalist who has spent quite a while with his nose in metaphysics and Philosophy. He asserts his philosophical system, based on the existence of God and the inherency of the Bible, is on much more secure ground than one based upon Empiricism or Science (which he portrays as logically fallacious and self-refuting). He's posted the basis for his Philosophical System for evaluation, and I'd enjoy some comments from this forum on the beast. Here it is:


QUOTE:

"My system goes beyond that though and *is* not only equal but better than the empiricist's.

See what you think abouit my Philosophical System.

Presupposition: “The Bible alone is the Word of God”

You will immediately notice three things about my presupposition.

Firstly it is improvable just as every other presupposition is.

Secondly it is *not* false by its own method of determining falsity for the Bible itself declares that it is inspired and inerrant. Now, I want you to see that once you presuppose the Bible the method of determining what is true is to ask does the Bible say it is true either by stating it expressly or by it being deduced using formally valid deduction. This is not the same thing as saying the Bible is true because it says it’s true. That would be circular reasoning and would therefore be invalid. We are not here trying to prove that the Bible is true, we have already presupposed this, we are only here asking what does the Bible say about itself.

And thirdly it is not formally invalid and therefore *not* illogical. Because the statement “The Bible alone is the Word of God” does not violate any laws of logic it is not invalid. In order to be illogical the statement must be either self refuting (like Empiricism’s presupposition is) or nonsense (for instance “The brown sound of one my licking boom!”) And as you can plainly see that since it breaks no laws of Logic the worst one could say is that it is false but never illogical.

So as you can see my Philosophical System is only improvable, but *not* false or illogical as we have seen Empiricism to be.

Furthermore my system has many other desirable and useful features that Empiricism *cannot* have:

A Working Epistemology (A theory of Knowing): All things knowable are either expressly set down in the Bible, or by necessary consequence can be *deduced* from the Bible.

Ontology (A theory of Being): All being is derived from the God of the Bible alone.

Sufficient grounds for Logic: The Bible calls Jesus the Logos, which is the Greek word from which we get the English word Logic.

Sufficient grounds for Absolute Morals: Commands abound!

And the most useful; sufficient grounds for the basic reliability of the senses (and so grounds for the Scientific Method): When Thomas doubts he is told by Jesus to touch and feel and to look and see His wounds. Therefore Jesus was demonstrating the basic reliability of the senses.

In summary my Philosophical System, Christianity, is *not* false, *not* illogical nor is it useless as we have seen Empiricism to be. It is improvable but that is a trait that it shares with every Philosophical System.

END QUOTE.

Thanks.

Prof.

Tau

So the Bible taught this guy how to use a computer?

OK, jokes aside, I'll throw in a few comments. I don't know much about this myself, but I do have some ideas.

He claims that his system has grounds for the Scientific Method. I looked up the definition of "scientific method" on dictionary.com; it reads:

Whoops, this is empiricism. So his system contains grounds for something illogical and self-refuting (according to his own words). Two possibilities here: His system does not contain grounds for the Scientific Method or empiricism is not illogical. Take your pick.

As for empiricism being illogical, well, we didn't discover the laws of electricity or work out atomic theory by reading the bible. It seems to me to be rather hypocritical to claim empiricism useless, and at the same time use tools, such as computers, which could not have existed without it.

TiredJim

Well, that theory pretty much falls apart if one can find something incorrect or inconsistent in the Bible (which we can). Then it is proven that either

a) The Bible is not the word of God

or

b) God is not perfect

And if God's not perfect, then who cares what his word is, really? We couldn't even trust him on the whole hell thing.

braces_for_impact

If you ask me the entire thing is one long non sequitur.

Quantum Ninja

I think ignorant is a better word than hypocritical in this case.

triplew00t

His logic seems to hold mostly, but he states that it is impossible to disprove him. It is not. If all things knowable are in the bible, what about the fact the bible states the value of Pi to be 3, when we can tell from any circle and ruler that its not? This is direct observation and requires no logical patterns of thought to see. There are many others like this error. If his presumption is correct, most of what we observe is wrong. If this is the case, why are we made to observe at all, or why could we not observe the bible itself incorrectly. Most importantly, if one uses the correctness as a presumption, what point is there of a philosophical logic system. If I say "cats are dogs, and anything that says they arent is not correct, as the only thing we can know for certian IS that cats are dogs" this is nonfalsifiable as well. It is also asinine and and stupid.

-Nero

sodium

First, it is clear that by presupposing ridiculous things, I can come to ridiculous conclusions. If I presuppose that Unicorns exist, then I can conclude that Unicorns exist.

Second, your opponent seems to feel that a presupposition is desirable if you can derive a lot of other stuff from it. But I don't see why. You could just as easily presuppose all the conclusions you wanted to come to as well. Once you give up caring whether you are actually right, and just presuppose stuff, I don't see why presupposing a few things from which lots of stuff can be derived is better than just presupposing whatever conclusions you want to reach.

Prof

Thanks folks.

I've made many points to him regarding his confusion of logic with science, his yet-to-be-defined concept of "proof," his mischaracterizations of science etc.

The sneaky tactic he used was to try and get me to agree that we are both "presupposationalists," in that both our epistemologies (his being the bible, mine being science-based) start with improvable presuppositions. Once he gets me to agree to that, he feels that his logical system is the more logically secure, being as his is largely based on Deduction, vs mine that he ascribes to Induction (induction reaching more provisional truths).

So it seems to me much of his argument rests upon the idea that "a presupposition is a presupposition" and his can be no worse than those made by Empiricism/Science (that valid knowledge can be derived from our senses).

It was my contention that all presuppositions are far from equal, and that most presuppositions can be evaluated for their hardiness and validity in the face of experience. (I gave examples of presuppositions that have been overthrown, as well as creating one wherein I predicated my dinner plans on the presupposition that I will gain the power of unaided flight after 6:00 that night, and thus needn't factor traffic into my travel time.
I noted that I will surely discover such a presupposition to be invalid, and that I will find a more reliable, valid presupposition in relying on previous experience, by presupposing that I'll need to walk or drive to meet my dinner plans).

That "not all presuppositions are equal" (e.g. that all presuppositions will not be evaluated as equally reliable) seems obvious. Unless I'm missing something....?

Prof.

Basil

Why do we need a presupposition? To avoid infinite regress of rationalization. X is valid because of Y. Y is valid because of Z. Z is valid because of... We need to stop somewhere, and that somewhere is a presupposition. Obviously the stopping place must be somewhere truly fundamental, in a qualitative sense: the presupposition must be compelling (self-evident) and its application parsimonious (generates that chain of validity from ... to Z and Y and X).

Sensory data as information input from the real world (albeit interpreted by our brains) is such a presupposition. It is compelling (true Phyrronic skeptics will probably not survive long enough to propagate their belief) and parsimonious (accepting the validity of sensory input provides a useful handle on phenomena.)

Presuppositionalism involving the Bible is neither compelling nor parsimonious. Show him a copy of the Koran and contact a Muslim friend to test the self-evidence of the Bible presupposition. (BTW all his arguments for the truthfulness of the Bible works for the truthfulness of the Koran. Or for that matter the truthfulness of a future prophet who will correct all the false doctrines perpetrated in the past by Christians and Muslims and all other religions. After all before Moses there was no Bible, right? ) To demonstrate parsimony, challenge him to identify from the Bible whether or not the earth is round. Then show how sense data can readily confirm that indeed the earth is round (e.g. flying around the world).

excreationist

Prof:
I wonder if that means that he doesn't believe that God has ever talked to anyone except through the Bible or in the times mentioned in the Bible. And I thought Jesus was "the Word of God". And I guess he believes that no-one has ever heard something from God and written it down - other than to write the books that are in the official Bible. (otherwise his presupposition is badly worded)

Basil:
From Isaiah 40:22a - "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth".
So according to that, the earth is round - like a circle. Creationists think that Hebrew word can be translated to mean "sphere" though. More info about that Hebrew word.
Him sitting "above" the earth implies it is a flat world otherwise "above" isn't clearly defined - it could be in any direction. But still, the verse could be used to argue a round earth...
Maybe a better example would be to ask him to use the Bible to see whether earth goes around the sun - or vice versa.