This was an exchange I had with a pseudo atheist:
Brian: I use logic and reason. I do not believe in supernatural fantasies....I've discovered that my religious views precisely parallel those of Thomas Jefferson.
The angry, violent, revengeful, psychopathic deity you're telling me about is false. The concept of a truly just and loving Nature's God is true.
In fact, Thomas Jefferson would refer to your belief system in make-believe ghosts and spirits as "masked atheism." ...
"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this MASKED ATHEISM, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is." ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820
Thomas Jefferson was a true Christian - the only way Jesus ever wanted.
Craig: "To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings" -Thomas Jefferson (as quoted by Brian)
"I use logic and reason" Brian
Brian, what is logic and reason?
Brian: Reason and logic are the hard work accomplished by a brain in gear.
"A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected by his Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge." --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia
"[God has bestowed] reason...as the umpire of truth." --Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814
Craig: What does logic look like after the brain has made it? Also, if no one's brains are functioning, can A be A and not A at the same time and in the same sense?
***At this point, Brian responds to someone else, and ignores my questions...so after10 hours, I asked***
Craig: Brian, what does logic look like? How much does it weigh? Does it taste like chicken?
****Approximately 14 hours go by...no response...so I state****
Craig: Brian, I slept on it and I realized...magical pink unicorns can't tell us anything about truth. I'm afraid that's what logic should be to you. I'm a Christian and my worldview makes immaterial things, like logic,intelligible.
I'd appreciate it if you'd simply believe in Christ that way you can use logic rather than stealing from my worldview.
PS the same goes for morality
Brian: “Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict ‘It is.’" ~John Galt's speech http://amberandchaos.com/?
Craig, your mockery of reason marks you as an abject failure in Jefferson's hope for American citizenry:
"My hope [is] that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason." ~Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, 1791
Why don't you put on your thinking cap, jump on the team, and come on in for the big win? Or is your vision a country run by the religious-right Taliban? Salem Witch Trials, anyone?
"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy." ~U.S. Representative Christopher Shays, R-CT, (New York Times 3/23/05)
Craig: Brian,
far from being logical (which you can't be *on your own terms*), you've managed to make zero logical arguments. You've made bare assertions, made appeals to authority, used ad hominem, used circular reasoning, and used red herrings, and then changed the subject to irrelevancies such as the Republican party or theocracies.
Why don't you answer my simple question?
If you use logic, and also believe the reference from TJ that reference to immaterial things is reference to nothing...then what is logic? If it is immaterial, it is nothing (on your terms). If the laws of logic are immaterial, and true, your materialism is false. If logic is material, then you can tell me how heavy it is, what it looks like or some other tangible descriptor.
Logic cannot be immaterial and materialism cannot be true at the same time...I mean, if you want to be logical. You don't want anyone to think you're operating on blind faith, do you Brian?
Also, if anyone is following this...note that Brian is a religious man. Those who reject the transcendent, Triune God will worship what is found under the sun. For many (including Brian), it is a political order. Those political orders will always oppose Christianity as they view allegiance to Christ as a threat to total obedience to their political faith.
For Brian, the Constitution is his god, and TJ is his prophet.
Brian:Craig, I will not help you to escape your extreme bewilderment regarding reason and logic. You must do that yourself.
No, my religious views are not a "political order." Furthermore, obedience and submission are what your magical deity demands, lest he torture me sadistically for all eternity for my virtue of Independence.
Nature's God is one of Freedom, not obedience.
I've introduced the subject of politics for a practical reason. It shows religious belief in a Tyrant deity has practical consequences - Tyranny here on earth.
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." ~Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
Craig: Just so we're clear...you don't have an answer for your contradicting assertions.
When cornered, quote more Thomas Jefferson...when shown your worldview can't account for logic or morality, quote TJ and take the moral high ground. Just remember, when you do either of those things, you are not arguing from your worldview. If you continue functioning on the assumption that logic is valid, I hope you will remember our conversation. I hope you will remember that, for logic to be true, your worldview must be false. That you own words pull the rug out from under you. That you prove God's Word true by this recurring theme:
Psalm 141:8-10
But my eyes are upon you, Oh God the Lord; in You I take refuge do not leave my soul destitute. Keep me from the snares they have laid for me and from the traps of the workers of iniquity. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I escape safely.
Brian: Craig, you've neither identified any contradiction, nor do you have me "cornered."
You've just spouted inanities showing how poorly you understand the philosophical theory of materialism (which Thomas Jefferson wrote about to John Adams, above) and the mental faculty of reason.
Your belief system denigrates the mind and reason; therefore, I'm not shocked that a simpleton like you labels anybody who can think as "wicked."
"The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems [Jesus',] for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there." ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith, August, 6, 1816
Craig: Brian, I stand by what I've said. You have no idea what I know/don't know about materialism.
I'll leave the question out there for others to ponder, perhaps another prophet will take up your mantle:
If speaking of immaterial things is to speak of nothings...then what is logic?
Calling it a product of the brain would make it material...but it would not allow it to be universal. Your brain's reasoning process would be no more "truthful" than my digesting a chicken sandwich. Logic would not be a unified set of laws, rather, logic would be different to each person as my brain's activity is not your brain's activity.
You may counter: there is correct brain functioning and there is wrong brain functioning...well, who determines that? Your brain? Mine? A majority vote? That in itself is a death-blow to your notion of freedom.
All you can do is appeal to your own brain's activity...but I don't think you are the standard, are you? Probably not. Then there's the whole problem of *who* is thinking in your brain? Are you the product of your brain? If so, you're like that chicken sandwich passing through my intestines. You're not free. You're determined by an unreasoning activity of your body. That being the case, you can't argue intelligibly that your brain's activity is any more virtuous than a bowel movement.
If you are not your brain, what are you? Is your personhood immaterial? If so, we're back to your worldview contradicting itself. You would be nothing. If you are material, you're not free...all you can do is slide down the inevitable path of the digestion track as it works you out of its system.
Brian: Craig, the phenomena of consciousness from the brain does not follow that logic and reason must somehow "taste like a chicken" or any other absurdity as you posit. Nor does it follow that consciousness is supernatural — which is the foregone conclusion of your religious belief system.
I do applaud your stated interest in the relevance of contradiction. That's a good start! Run with it, because a short definition of logic is simply "non-contradictory integration."
"We believed that men, enjoying in ease and security the full fruits of their own industry, enlisted by all their interests on the side of law and order, habituated to think for themselves and to follow their reason as their guide, would be more easily and safely governed than with minds nourished in error and vitiated and debased... by ignorance, indigence and oppression." ~Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823
Craig: Is logic immaterial?
Brian: Consciousness — the capacity of awareness — is a phenomena of the physical mind that exists materially.
Reason the mind's tool to identify and integrate what you learn from your senses. Logic is non-contradictory reasoning.
If nothing existed materially, then consciousness, and subsequently of reason and logic, could not exist.
That is my complete answer to your question. If you're playing a shyster lawyer demanding a yes/no answer when it calls for clarification, they think how Jesus answered such:
"And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him." ~The Jefferson Bible, chap. 1, v. 55
I'll continue:
Mysticism posits a reality different than the one in which we live, i.e., super-natural.
Since one cannot perceive the supernatural, mystics claim faith is the way they somehow perceive it. However, faith is only faith in somebody else's authority - I told you so!
The I-told-you-so! authority sources are holy books, clergy, prophets claiming they hear divine voices, or even sci-fi authors deliberately pulling people's leg. (as is the case of L. Ron Hubbard inventing "Scientology.")
Whether you fall for L. Ron Hubbard, or the Apostle Paul's corruptions of Jesus' teachings, you're accepting as truth what he told you to accept as truth without—or in spite of—of logical evidence.
"Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Corypheus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." ~Thomas Jefferson
To clarify the above, I'll quote a Jefferson biographer:
"Like other Enlightenment rationalists, Jefferson was convinced that the real villain in the Christian story was the apostle Paul, who had corrupted the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus, which thus had, in combination with the otherworldly outlook of the Fourth Gospel, produced the monstrosities of dogma, superstition, and priestcraft, which were the essence of Christian orthodoxy." ~Jaroslav Pelikan, Jefferson And Contemporaries, pg. 5
Craig, I never, ever submit to any I-Told-You-So! Authority over my mind.
And that is our irreconcilable difference. I think. You submit and obey, as if there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus. You follow the dogma, superstition, and priestcraft. I'll be an Enlightenment rationalist.
Craig: No shyster lawyering here...I just don't want to shake a stick in the dark.
You said: "Reason the mind's tool to identify and integrate what you learn from your senses. Logic is non-contradictory reasoning."
One problem here is that you can't perceive logical truths. When I observe a tree...at that moment, I'm not perceiving that the same tree cannot also be a rock. There is no inductive inference to go from on that. So if you're basing deductive reasoning (logic) on induction (perception/empirical testing), you can't even bolster the law of non-contradiction.
Further, you would have to assume the trustworthiness of your senses for your reasoning to be correct...if you are perceiving a sharp object as being blunt, your mind may try to integrate this, but it's working from inaccurate data. In order to justify the trustworthiness of your senses, you must appeal to your senses...which would be circular reasoning...you must prove your case, not appeal to the very thing in question.
The very fact that you accept that the mind "integrates" what your senses are perceiving means you're presupposing rationality and order...yet these are the things you're supposed to be proving from your worldview...again, you are employing circular logic.
Finally, when empiricists (which you seem to be) function on the axiom that everything must be perceivable in order to be intelligible...that axiom cannot be perceived. It's self-refuting.
I have barely scratched the surface on showing the self-refuting nature of materialism...For instance: If consciousness is a product of the brain's activity, it would follow that my "self-awareness" is determined by electric impulses jumping synapses...correcting one's reasoning process would require brain surgery...and as I brought out already, since no man can justify his own experiences by appealing to his senses, you couldn't know that the brain surgeon will wire your brain properly or if you even need the surgery in the first place.
Further, it adds an insurmountable difficulty in justifying the sort of personal liberty Brian would like to establish. If he is the product of an unthinking biological process...he's simply the necessary antecedent to a succession of natural acts. Much in the same way the backside of a fly goes through his brain when he collides with my windshield
Brian: Rationality is a matter of choice. Sacrifice your mind's reason to the I-Told-You-So! authority of faith if you wish.
Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics." ~Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1792
Craig: That in no way began to speak to the critique I laid out.
I already demonstrated you sacrificed rationality to materialism. If you followed my argument, you will note I've implicitly addressed the absurdity of your equivalent of an altar call to choose rationality rather than sacrifice my mind to authority.
According to your view, I am the necessary antecedent to prior natural events. Any choice I make is the result of physical laws set in motion before my brain began.
You have not offered rationality, and you've offered nothing but bondage.
"The true religion which shall satisfy our mind and heart, our conscience and our will, must be one that does not shut us up in, but lifts us high above the world; in the midst of time it must impart to us eternity; in the midst of death give us life; in the midst of the stream of change place us on the immovable rock of salvation. This is the reason why transcendence, supranaturalism, revelation, are essential to all religion." -Herman Bavinck
Brian: EPISTEMOLOGY
You're using reason in an attempt to destroy the validity of reason. The alphabet, words, grammar are all derivatives of reason. You're using them in an attempt to destroy reason. It's obvious you've studied philosophy. But it's kind of like watching a fellow hit himself with a hammer, trying to destroy his own mind's only legitimate tool.
Regardless, you are distorting my rejection of the supernatural into a witless determinism. No, we're not deterministic robots as you falsely attribute. That's a straw-man sophistry.
DIVINE REVELATION
I reject claims that some supernatural deity is talking through a man who says he hears voices. Why? There are several rational explanations for people who hear voices from "God." They might be confidence men. Maybe they have a mental disorder.
Auditory hallucinations are a key sign of schizophrenia. I've observed that myself while working on a Psych Ward in the hospital. The victims are very sincere. I didn't take their "voice of god" hallucinations authoritatively.
The author of the Book of Mormons claims divine revelation. In my opinion, he was just a con man like L. Ron Hubbard. I don't take his "voice of god" claims authoritatively.
Paul, the self-titled "Apostle" (even though he never knew Jesus) claimed to hear divine voices. Maybe he was sincere. Maybe he was a con. Who knows? At any rate, I don't take his "voice of god" claims authoritatively.
SON OF GOD - Score: 0
Do you realize that "The Son of God" is a term that never passed Jesus' lips? (Yes, I realize the phrase is in the Gospels - but Jesus never said the term directly. It was always others attributing the term to Jesus. )
JESUS, SON OF MAN - Score: 12
Jesus always referred to himself as "The Son of Man." (I counted only occurrences in the Jefferson Bible - there are plenty more in the Council of Nicaea's selected Gospels.)
He might think it absurd how Paul the Mythmaker, and pauline Gospel authors, managed to turn Jesus into a pagan Mediterranean blood salvation cult figure and make him into a god.
It's kind of like George Washington's legend of the cherry tree, which is a fabrication by Mason Locke Weems. Calling that a fabrication doesn't mean I reject or denigrate the the First President.
I like George Washington. I like Jesus; in fact I follow his teachings as a Christian - the way I think he would have wanted.
HELL FOR THINKERS
Now Paul might want to send me to hell for — not bad actions — but mere skepticism.
But I don't accept things that appear untrue, using reason and logic and applying it to history.
And it's unjust to think a God would send me to hell to punish me for using my mind to the best of my ability.
Such absurd claims of "divine punishment" are merely human claims from those types of people are hostile to reason. And why wouldn't they be hostile? I've kept control of my mind; they've sacrificed theirs to an inferior I-Told-You-So! authority.
Ya think they're just a wee bit jealous? Are you? This cowboy doesn't submit to schizophrenic ramblings - and you do.
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus." ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816
Craig: Brian,
I'm not destroying reason...I've destroyed your worldview. Reason would only be destroyed if it happened to be synonymous with materialism...which is not...as I demonstrated.
It would do you well to learn what you are talking about when it comes to logic. From what I can tell, you have no actual acquaintance with it...it seems that, to you, something is logical if it agrees with your point of view...which is materialism. Time and again, you simply take for granted your point of view as if I somehow have the impetus of meeting with that standard...I reject it outright. It fails on its own terms...miserably...embarrassingly miserably, I might add.
I'm tempted to say we've hit the impasse...I don't believe we can go any further. When I provide logical arguments, you counter with assertion, empty rhetoric, and appeals to Thomas Jefferson...you then complete the picture with distorted oversimplifications of Christian teaching and try to make me out to be an imbecile...not terribly thought-provoking and it tests the patience of anyone with a modicum of generosity when a thoughtful interaction is returned with disrespect.
Unfortunately, this sort of rhetoric is par for the course, especially with the "New Atheist" movement. What passes for "free-thinking" and inquiry is little more than open ridicule of ideas the "free-thinker" takes no time to understand...ignorance looks from a distance, the real thinker goes to the wardrobe of ideas and tries things on to see how they fit.
When an ignorant man happens to cross a battlefield, he stops to point at all the men wearing "shiny space suits" and laughs...only to be disemboweled by one of those large, pointy things the silly chaps in shiny space suits is carrying (before he's disemboweled, he makes a remarkably astute observation about how the pointy thing in each man's hand is an attempt at compensating for something in a Freudian manner). Just before the man dies, he shouts defiantly: "PUDDING!" His fellow ignorants will applaud the martyr...he died because he pointed out the obvious. He saw the truth: Shiny space suits and men with large pointy things trying to compensate for something.
Brian Concludes
Brian: Oh my!...you've "destroyed" my world view..."disemboweled"..."pointy thing"...
Whew!
Such is typical terminology from the Obedience-Domination-Fear-Submission-Authoritarian-Taliban worldview. Angry, abused people have merely invented their angry, abusive God in their image. Unfortunately, this false fear-mongering Hellbringer deity has manifest such a danger here on earth:... See more
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity." ~Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
Nature's God —Love, Life, Liberty, Happiness, Reason— is waiting there for you to discover. I hope you do some day.
And as Jesus said to love your theological debate opponents (among other "enemies,") I'll say this:
I love you in Jesus' name and may God's peace be with you.
MY CONCLUDING STATEMENT
Craig: In conclusion, you seem to have missed the point of the battlefield analogy (sorry, couldn't resist saying "point").
It wasn't to say out how "awesome" my arguments are and that you were disemboweled...it was to shed light on the fact that ignorants mock what they don't understand...they make light of what is of the utmost seriousness. They think by saying "shiny space suits" or using sham psychology that they're actually dealing with what's in front of them.
Brian, submit yourself to Christ. His authority is supreme. His yoke is freedom. You believe error, but you are not in danger of hell because of a lack of evidence...God does not condemn men because they fail intellectually...we fail to recognize God on account of our sin. What we do know, we suppress, not because of our wisdom, but because of our sin.
Romans 1:18-20
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Romans 8:6-7
The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
1 Cor 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Cor 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
You do not need an intellectual argument, you need to repent and believe. God will give you a new heart...and the freedom and love you say you desire will be realized...only bigger, greater, and eternal.
I do applaud your stated interest in the relevance of contradiction. That's a good start! Run with it, because a short definition of logic is simply "non-contradictory integration."
"We believed that men, enjoying in ease and security the full fruits of their own industry, enlisted by all their interests on the side of law and order, habituated to think for themselves and to follow their reason as their guide, would be more easily and safely governed than with minds nourished in error and vitiated and debased... by ignorance, indigence and oppression." ~Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823
Craig: Is logic immaterial?
Brian: Consciousness — the capacity of awareness — is a phenomena of the physical mind that exists materially.
Reason the mind's tool to identify and integrate what you learn from your senses. Logic is non-contradictory reasoning.
If nothing existed materially, then consciousness, and subsequently of reason and logic, could not exist.
That is my complete answer to your question. If you're playing a shyster lawyer demanding a yes/no answer when it calls for clarification, they think how Jesus answered such:
"And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him." ~The Jefferson Bible, chap. 1, v. 55
I'll continue:
Mysticism posits a reality different than the one in which we live, i.e., super-natural.
Since one cannot perceive the supernatural, mystics claim faith is the way they somehow perceive it. However, faith is only faith in somebody else's authority - I told you so!
The I-told-you-so! authority sources are holy books, clergy, prophets claiming they hear divine voices, or even sci-fi authors deliberately pulling people's leg. (as is the case of L. Ron Hubbard inventing "Scientology.")
Whether you fall for L. Ron Hubbard, or the Apostle Paul's corruptions of Jesus' teachings, you're accepting as truth what he told you to accept as truth without—or in spite of—of logical evidence.
"Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Corypheus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." ~Thomas Jefferson
To clarify the above, I'll quote a Jefferson biographer:
"Like other Enlightenment rationalists, Jefferson was convinced that the real villain in the Christian story was the apostle Paul, who had corrupted the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus, which thus had, in combination with the otherworldly outlook of the Fourth Gospel, produced the monstrosities of dogma, superstition, and priestcraft, which were the essence of Christian orthodoxy." ~Jaroslav Pelikan, Jefferson And Contemporaries, pg. 5
Craig, I never, ever submit to any I-Told-You-So! Authority over my mind.
And that is our irreconcilable difference. I think. You submit and obey, as if there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus. You follow the dogma, superstition, and priestcraft. I'll be an Enlightenment rationalist.
Craig: No shyster lawyering here...I just don't want to shake a stick in the dark.
You said: "Reason the mind's tool to identify and integrate what you learn from your senses. Logic is non-contradictory reasoning."
One problem here is that you can't perceive logical truths. When I observe a tree...at that moment, I'm not perceiving that the same tree cannot also be a rock. There is no inductive inference to go from on that. So if you're basing deductive reasoning (logic) on induction (perception/empirical testing), you can't even bolster the law of non-contradiction.
Further, you would have to assume the trustworthiness of your senses for your reasoning to be correct...if you are perceiving a sharp object as being blunt, your mind may try to integrate this, but it's working from inaccurate data. In order to justify the trustworthiness of your senses, you must appeal to your senses...which would be circular reasoning...you must prove your case, not appeal to the very thing in question.
The very fact that you accept that the mind "integrates" what your senses are perceiving means you're presupposing rationality and order...yet these are the things you're supposed to be proving from your worldview...again, you are employing circular logic.
Finally, when empiricists (which you seem to be) function on the axiom that everything must be perceivable in order to be intelligible...that axiom cannot be perceived. It's self-refuting.
I have barely scratched the surface on showing the self-refuting nature of materialism...For instance: If consciousness is a product of the brain's activity, it would follow that my "self-awareness" is determined by electric impulses jumping synapses...correcting one's reasoning process would require brain surgery...and as I brought out already, since no man can justify his own experiences by appealing to his senses, you couldn't know that the brain surgeon will wire your brain properly or if you even need the surgery in the first place.
Further, it adds an insurmountable difficulty in justifying the sort of personal liberty Brian would like to establish. If he is the product of an unthinking biological process...he's simply the necessary antecedent to a succession of natural acts. Much in the same way the backside of a fly goes through his brain when he collides with my windshield
Brian: Rationality is a matter of choice. Sacrifice your mind's reason to the I-Told-You-So! authority of faith if you wish.
Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics." ~Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1792
Craig: That in no way began to speak to the critique I laid out.
I already demonstrated you sacrificed rationality to materialism. If you followed my argument, you will note I've implicitly addressed the absurdity of your equivalent of an altar call to choose rationality rather than sacrifice my mind to authority.
According to your view, I am the necessary antecedent to prior natural events. Any choice I make is the result of physical laws set in motion before my brain began.
You have not offered rationality, and you've offered nothing but bondage.
"The true religion which shall satisfy our mind and heart, our conscience and our will, must be one that does not shut us up in, but lifts us high above the world; in the midst of time it must impart to us eternity; in the midst of death give us life; in the midst of the stream of change place us on the immovable rock of salvation. This is the reason why transcendence, supranaturalism, revelation, are essential to all religion." -Herman Bavinck
Brian: EPISTEMOLOGY
You're using reason in an attempt to destroy the validity of reason. The alphabet, words, grammar are all derivatives of reason. You're using them in an attempt to destroy reason. It's obvious you've studied philosophy. But it's kind of like watching a fellow hit himself with a hammer, trying to destroy his own mind's only legitimate tool.
Regardless, you are distorting my rejection of the supernatural into a witless determinism. No, we're not deterministic robots as you falsely attribute. That's a straw-man sophistry.
DIVINE REVELATION
I reject claims that some supernatural deity is talking through a man who says he hears voices. Why? There are several rational explanations for people who hear voices from "God." They might be confidence men. Maybe they have a mental disorder.
Auditory hallucinations are a key sign of schizophrenia. I've observed that myself while working on a Psych Ward in the hospital. The victims are very sincere. I didn't take their "voice of god" hallucinations authoritatively.
The author of the Book of Mormons claims divine revelation. In my opinion, he was just a con man like L. Ron Hubbard. I don't take his "voice of god" claims authoritatively.
Paul, the self-titled "Apostle" (even though he never knew Jesus) claimed to hear divine voices. Maybe he was sincere. Maybe he was a con. Who knows? At any rate, I don't take his "voice of god" claims authoritatively.
SON OF GOD - Score: 0
Do you realize that "The Son of God" is a term that never passed Jesus' lips? (Yes, I realize the phrase is in the Gospels - but Jesus never said the term directly. It was always others attributing the term to Jesus. )
JESUS, SON OF MAN - Score: 12
Jesus always referred to himself as "The Son of Man." (I counted only occurrences in the Jefferson Bible - there are plenty more in the Council of Nicaea's selected Gospels.)
He might think it absurd how Paul the Mythmaker, and pauline Gospel authors, managed to turn Jesus into a pagan Mediterranean blood salvation cult figure and make him into a god.
It's kind of like George Washington's legend of the cherry tree, which is a fabrication by Mason Locke Weems. Calling that a fabrication doesn't mean I reject or denigrate the the First President.
I like George Washington. I like Jesus; in fact I follow his teachings as a Christian - the way I think he would have wanted.
HELL FOR THINKERS
Now Paul might want to send me to hell for — not bad actions — but mere skepticism.
But I don't accept things that appear untrue, using reason and logic and applying it to history.
And it's unjust to think a God would send me to hell to punish me for using my mind to the best of my ability.
Such absurd claims of "divine punishment" are merely human claims from those types of people are hostile to reason. And why wouldn't they be hostile? I've kept control of my mind; they've sacrificed theirs to an inferior I-Told-You-So! authority.
Ya think they're just a wee bit jealous? Are you? This cowboy doesn't submit to schizophrenic ramblings - and you do.
"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus." ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816
Craig: Brian,
I'm not destroying reason...I've destroyed your worldview. Reason would only be destroyed if it happened to be synonymous with materialism...which is not...as I demonstrated.
It would do you well to learn what you are talking about when it comes to logic. From what I can tell, you have no actual acquaintance with it...it seems that, to you, something is logical if it agrees with your point of view...which is materialism. Time and again, you simply take for granted your point of view as if I somehow have the impetus of meeting with that standard...I reject it outright. It fails on its own terms...miserably...embarr
I'm tempted to say we've hit the impasse...I don't believe we can go any further. When I provide logical arguments, you counter with assertion, empty rhetoric, and appeals to Thomas Jefferson...you then complete the picture with distorted oversimplifications of Christian teaching and try to make me out to be an imbecile...not terribly thought-provoking and it tests the patience of anyone with a modicum of generosity when a thoughtful interaction is returned with disrespect.
Unfortunately, this sort of rhetoric is par for the course, especially with the "New Atheist" movement. What passes for "free-thinking" and inquiry is little more than open ridicule of ideas the "free-thinker" takes no time to understand...ignorance looks from a distance, the real thinker goes to the wardrobe of ideas and tries things on to see how they fit.
When an ignorant man happens to cross a battlefield, he stops to point at all the men wearing "shiny space suits" and laughs...only to be disemboweled by one of those large, pointy things the silly chaps in shiny space suits is carrying (before he's disemboweled, he makes a remarkably astute observation about how the pointy thing in each man's hand is an attempt at compensating for something in a Freudian manner). Just before the man dies, he shouts defiantly: "PUDDING!" His fellow ignorants will applaud the martyr...he died because he pointed out the obvious. He saw the truth: Shiny space suits and men with large pointy things trying to compensate for something.
Brian Concludes
Brian: Oh my!...you've "destroyed" my world view..."disemboweled"..."p
Whew!
Such is typical terminology from the Obedience-Domination-Fear-
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity." ~Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
Nature's God —Love, Life, Liberty, Happiness, Reason— is waiting there for you to discover. I hope you do some day.
And as Jesus said to love your theological debate opponents (among other "enemies,") I'll say this:
I love you in Jesus' name and may God's peace be with you.
MY CONCLUDING STATEMENT
Craig: In conclusion, you seem to have missed the point of the battlefield analogy (sorry, couldn't resist saying "point").
It wasn't to say out how "awesome" my arguments are and that you were disemboweled...it was to shed light on the fact that ignorants mock what they don't understand...they make light of what is of the utmost seriousness. They think by saying "shiny space suits" or using sham psychology that they're actually dealing with what's in front of them.
Brian, submit yourself to Christ. His authority is supreme. His yoke is freedom. You believe error, but you are not in danger of hell because of a lack of evidence...God does not condemn men because they fail intellectually...we fail to recognize God on account of our sin. What we do know, we suppress, not because of our wisdom, but because of our sin.
Romans 1:18-20
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Romans 8:6-7
The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.
1 Cor 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Cor 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
You do not need an intellectual argument, you need to repent and believe. God will give you a new heart...and the freedom and love you say you desire will be realized...only bigger, greater, and eternal.
