Prodigal writes:
But you still have me convinced of nothing.
Then you're a fool. You don't have to convert to Christianity to see that your way of validating your senses and your reason doesn't work.
At least you can admit to being convinced of that. If you're not convinced, let's try again. Go ahead and validate your sensory and your reasoning faculties. I bet you can't do it.
Prodigal writes:
Your answer for how to validate my senses was to convert to a biblical worldview. I'm not quoting you verbatim, so if I missed something, please let me know, I'd greatly appreciate it.
It was merely a suggestion. If you want to continue wallowing in irrationality and fatuous self-worship, that's your business (for now).
Prodigal writes:
Converting to a christian worldview brings us right back to square one, Hilston. You tell me that until I can validate my senses I shouldn't attack christianity. I accepted what you said, I asked you for a way to validate my senses. You came back and said the only way to validate my senses was to convert to a christian worldview, right so far? Hilston, you're arguing in a circle, and I haven't fallen for it.
Did I start with arguing the Christian worldview? No. So where's the circle you accuse me of?
Prodigal writes:
If the only way to validate my senses is to go back to a biblical worldview than you're asking me to believe in that which I don't.
No, I'm merely informing you of the only way to validate your senses. You can continue the way you're going if you wish, but you can no longer demand proof of anyone for anything without being a hypocrite.
Prodigal writes:
You're asking the impossible, you're trying to get me to play a game in which you're the only winner, and there is no reasonable outcome except that which YOU desire.
This has nothing to do with me. Pretend I don't exist. You're still left with an irrational worldview on which you have no basis to prove, test or validate your own faculties, knowledge or beliefs, and no basis to expect proof or validation from others about their beliefs.
Prodigal writes:
Hilston, I was on the cusp of respecting you, I was on the cusp of taking all of your high class intellectual blatherings seriously. I was excited about learning something new, but as I feared, your words are useless to me.
I can't say that I'm surprised. Nearly every atheist or quasi-Christian or anti-Christian I've debated has said the same thing. They get all excited when things start to make sense, but then they're disappointed when they find out that my message is the same as the Bible's. "Repent or perish." It seems the reason you're disappointed is that you got all excited about the seeming "high class intellect" that goes into such a treatment of the issues, only to find out that it's been a biblical treatment you've been subjected to. So of course you're going to lose respect for me once you realize that's what you've been getting from the start. And that's because you have a prejudicial a priori hatred of the message of the Bible. So you realize that you wouldn't even be able to claim: "Look what I've ascertained and established on my own intellectual prowess," because the credit would have to go to God and His Word. You want to remain your own lawmaker and worship yourself. Your auto-idolatry puts you on the broad road with all the other auto-idolatrous gods, Prodigal.
Prodigal writes:
I want nothing more than an admission from christians that they can't prove anything they believe, ...
Why should we admit that to you when you can't even justify your standards of proof, let alone your own ability to assess whatever proof is presented? Did you forget that part?
Prodigal writes:
... and you told me that I can't prove anything I believe because blue MAY NOT be blue but it COULD BE red.
And you agreed, remember? Didn't you admit "there's no way anything can be proven so long as there's the possibility that our eyes are actually seeing something that isn't there"? Don't be a hypocrite, Prodigal.
Prodigal writes:
That's not good enough, Hilston. The sky IS blue, not red. Everyone knows it. An apple tossed into the air WILL fall, even if I throw it a million times. To say that it MAY NOT fall is not good enough for me. The fact that it always has fallen is enough for me to accurately and certainly predict that it always will. Telling me that there is a possiblilty for it to fly away one day, is not good enough.
Fine. Then you simply have a "so-far-so-good" best-guess assumption about reality on the basis of senses and reason that you cannot prove, test or calibrate. But you cannot have any certainty about anything in your experience, and you never will until you submit your thinking to the only One who exhaustively knows everything. And as long as you have no certainty about anything, you have no grounds on which to demand proof about anything from anyone.
Prodigal writes:
Hilston your argument is based on a world view that you cannot prove.
I can prove it. Your problem is this: You have no grounds to demand proof without being a hypocrite. You can't even rationally reject my proof without being a hypocrite. Remember what you said? You said that you deny "claims that have no proof to verify their validity." Look in the mirror, Prodigal! You just described your own espoused reality, and on that basis, you must reject and deny your own claims (and you want to worship yourself?!?!?!).
Prodigal writes:
I can predict that what I believe in will happen, and then I can prove it.
You have a short memory, Prodigal. I don't deny that you can make predictions and make proofs. My point is that you must be arbitrary in doing so. You must stipulate arbitrary standards that you can't justify. You must use senses that you cannot validate. You must use reasoning faculties you cannot calibrate. I can watch your experiments and agree with you about predictions and watch their outcome and know with certainty that science was done properly. But you have no such certainty. We both watch and experience the same event and come to the same conclusions, and one of us can be certain about what was just witnessed and the other cannot.
Prodigal writes:
You can't do either, and telling me that the only way to validate my senses is to convert to your narrow minded idea of reality is not good enough for me.
I predicted that, and I can prove it happened.
Prodigal writes:
I don't have to validate anything, I just need to know that I believe in myself and reality.
That's called self-delusion. Crazy people talk like that, Prodigal. They're always the first ones to tell you that they're not crazy.
Prodigal writes:
I can predict reality, and then I can test it, and then I have proof.
Without certainty about predication and logic (which you admit you cannot validate) and without certainty about your sensory faculties (which you admit you cannot validate), you have no certainty about your proof of anything.
Prodigal writes:
If one day the sky turns out to be red than I'll tip my hat to you.
You've completely missed the point. It doesn't have to turn red for you own admission to be true. Remember when you recognized this?: "[T]here's no way anything can be proven so long as there's the possibility that our eyes are actually seeing something that isn't there."
Prodigal writes:
But saying that it COULD QUITE POSSIBLY BE RED, is not as good as being able to look at the sky and see that it is blue.
Seeing it with what? Your eyes, whose verity you cannot validate? Your visual cortex, whose proper function you cannot validate?
Prodigal writes:
No doubt this will infuriate you and you will continue to say how embarassed you are for me, and how stupid I am, but Hilston, you believe that the sky is red and that your messiah is a zombie.
I admit I had hope for you. Maybe not in "converting" you, but at least in your acknowledging the epistemological dilemma that emerges when one is willing to ask the tough philosophical questions. It doesn't infuriate me. I predicted this would happen. Like most people, when a little bit of light seeped into the crack, it scared you. You're not the first one I seen this happen to, you won't be the last.
Prodigal writes:
Unphased and always your truly, ...
Thanks for the dialogue. By the way, I think "unfazed" is the word you're looking for, and I don't think it's really true. I think you were quite seriously fazed, if at least for a moment. But human self-delusion is rather powerful thing. So powerful that it send scores of people to hell every day.
