Great stuff from Jim Hilston....
:first:Hi ThePhy,
Thank you for the dialogue and for your responses. My remarks are in-line below.
The very asking of the question implies, even requires, His existence.I started (long ago) with a question about the existence of God, rather than an assumed answer.
There is a major, glaring problem with your claim, namely, basing your conclusion on experiences and understanding. Given your God-less worldivew, you have no justification for trusting in either. Please read Russell again.Well, I will admit I was biased by upbringing to be strongly on the pro-God side, but always was open to new understanding. And now my premise is the opposite of yours, based on my experiences and understanding. God is an invention of man.
Hilston said:I do not deny that so-called atheists use logic correctly. But they do so without warrant.
Exactly. If you're happy equating yourself with a calculator, then stop acting as if there is any such thing as interpreting meaning or value in the results of your calculations. As soon as you presume to derive or interpret meaning in anything whatsoever, you affirm the existence of God, without Whom it would not be possible. This again demonstrates the contradictions in the life of the anti-theist. They want to pretend that everything boils down to mere calculations of quantity and data. But they can't live that way. They must go outside of their own narrow, indefensible worldview of matter and motion and act as if there is any such thing as quality and value and meaning and relevance.No more so than a computer adding two numbers does so without warrant.
Hilston said:You miss the point. I'm sure you use logic quite well in whatever domain of science you work in. The issue is not whether or not logic holds; rather, the issue is whether or not you can disavow having "faith sans evidence."
If you will recall, you are the one who started this by saying, "I prefer to say my “understanding”, not my “belief”. Belief can be misconstrued to be faith, which is held sans evidence." So why don't you explain what your reference to evidence is about.Until I understand what this repeated nebulous reference to evidence is about, I will simply set this aside.
Hilston said:The ad populum fallacy invalidates your point. It doesn't matter who or how many people part company with me. What matters is what the Bible says, which you can read for yourself, and its indictment against anyone who presumes to seek knowledge apart from God.
Let's see if I understand what you're saying. When GuySmiley says, "The fact that the scientific method works only supports what Hilston is saying," and you respond with, "No it doesn't," it is not your implicit stance that you have it right, and that those who part company with you are thus necessarily wrong? And when you refer to God as a "mythological being that was concocted by people," it is not your implicit stance that you have it right, and that those who part company with you are thus necessarily wrong. Do I have that right?Wasn’t invoking ad populum. Just doing then like I do again here, pointing out that your implicit stance is that you have it right, and those who “part company with you” are thus necessarily wrong.
Everytime I hear this sort of objection, I shake my head in amazement. A long time ago in this forum, someone said to me, "It seems that the greatest hindrance to a fruitful discussion here is that Hilston has already decided he is right, and nothing else will persuade him otherwise."
To which I replied:
I'd like to request a show of hands: Is anyone involved in this debate arguing from the standpoint: "I haven't decided whether or not I'm right"?
Who does that? Why bother showing up for a debate if you haven't yet decided that your position is the right position?
The variants are not due to any flaw in the Bible's content, but rather in the people who wish to impose their own meanings upon it to their own ends. The same is true for any old document that holds authority, whether real or imagined. That is to say, you won't see many debates over the meanings of Melville's Moby Dick because it doesn't hold any authority over people's lives. But you will see such debates regarding, for example, the Constitution of the United States. And the same rules apply. Should we interpret the document according to the intent of the original authors, or should we interpret it according to "modern" needs and concerns?You speak of what the Bible says, as though that were a fixed quantity. There are hundreds of variants of Christianity, some with violently different convictions about what the Bible message is.
This is a common canard raised by those who look for reasons to discredit the Bible and to dismiss its authority. Of course, it's exactly what we'd expect from people who'd rather ignore it. The uncertainties, variants, and disputed words are profoundly minor, and amount to nothing more than a convenient and specious excuse.Even the Bible itself is a plastic document, with uncertainties about what books really should be included, what variants of readings are the faithful ones, what the correct meanings of some disputed words are.
On the contrary, not only do I not make any such claim, whatever I do claim "the Bible says" can be disputed and debated, and I'm happy to defend the Book as I understand it. I know I hold incorrect understandings about things in the Bible. Given the gap in language, history and culture, it's inescapable. And as soon as I discover where my misunderstandings lie, I will correct them and move on. In the meantime, I will defend the teachings of Scripture to the best of my understanding.You come across as having a crystal clear understanding of "what the Bible says”, which enthrones you as the supreme arbiter.
Hilston said:When you, or anyone, take the pragmatic road in defending your use of induction, you betray a lack of adequate reflection on the nature of the scientific enterprise. …
That still doesn't address the problem. How will you know if the law of induction stops working? How would you test it?I am well aware that there is no guarantee that nature will act tomorrow as it does today. One of the fundamental things that keep theories from being “proven” is that until every piece of evidence is weighed against the theory, we can never be sure it holds in every case.
Hilston said:You're missing the point. It is not a question of whether or not it is successful, but rather, how do you justify your continued use of it, sans evidence?
You started it. I'm parroting you.Again you parrot this “sans evidence” phrase.
The biblical worldview affirms induction and that the existence of God justifies our reliance upon the uniformity of nature. Therefore, the theist has every justification for expecting the hammer to work similarly from one nail to the next, and for expecting the banana to continue being a poor tool for the task. The anti-theist has no such justification, as Bertrand Russell has observed and so eloquently states.I have some board to nail together. I have some nails. I have two tools I have never used. One I am told is a banana, and the other a hammer. I try to pound in the nails with each of them. Am I being illogical if I soon decide the hammer is by far the better tool, and opt to use it as my primary nail-pounding tool? Would you use both equally, or how would you justify your continued use of the hammer?
Hilston said:On the contrary, it is your blind faith whose productivity needs to be questioned. The success of science is in spite of, not because of, those who presume to use the tools of science without acknowledging the God Who is back of them.
And you have contradicted yourself, having tied the success to science to blind faith in magic. But this isn't a mere conflict between your magic and my God, because God not only accounts for the existence and success of the laws of logic and the scientific method, but He holds every atom of existence together, ensuring the general reliability of our senses and mental faculties, and of the uniformity of nature. God-less science is an oxymoron at best, because the scientist who rejects the existence of God is tacitly undermining the very tools he presumes to use, all the while borrowing the very tools and principles of the biblical worldview he denies. It is the proverbial fire stolen from the gods.Right there you have tied the success of science to a mythological being that was concocted by people.
Hilston said:Every scientific advancement is the result of the philosophy of the Bible, namely, that nature is uniform, the laws of logic are invariant and universal and that human observation and experience are generally reliable.
So, by rejecting the Bible and the Author thereof, you undermine your own science, become a living contradiction, and place your soul in jeopardy. Theist and anti-theist scientists will continue to have success in science, but the former do so with justification and a realistic general certainty about what they're doing. Whereas the latter have neither justification, nor certainty (if they are as honest with themselves as Bertrand Russell was). This won't matter to most people in the present, and that's fine, as long as they continue to get the results they want or expect. It will, however, matter in the long run. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of justified knowledge, and God will call to account every soul that presumed to use His tools without acknowledging Him and His Word.In broad perspective, I agree this is the framework portrayed in the Bible. So?
Thats not even the topic! Its driving me crazy.
