eccl3_6 said:
How can you be a theist and an agnostic?
I dispute this, science can be irrational, very irrational. Chaos theory is very aptly named but Quantum takes the cake. A brief example. Consider two particles that go around in in pairs. One always rotates 'clockwise', the other 'anticlockwise' (just a way of denominating them) split them up and change or assign one's direction and the other instantly changes direction to accomodate. No signals in between, no message passed but some how like freeky identical twins the particles just know what the other is doing. Sound strange? It gets weirder! People generally accept light speed in a vacuum (c) to be the theoritcal optimum.....can't go faster than light. The evidence behind that is staggering. But split these particles up and they know what the other's doing faster than light speed could pass the message. Its literally instantaneous as though they're the same thing....but they're not. They can be in seperate rooms and they just know each other's state. It defies logic...but it works. We can see it happening in labs...we can repeat the experiment over and over again with the same results. This was called the EPR paradox (EPR: Einsten, Podolsky and Rosen)
And as logic defying experiments go its not alone. Electrons orbitting atoms disappear. And then reappear somewhere else. Things existing in 'grey' states. Logic is not a word you'd use to describe physics....many things we are found through a process of trial and error until a direction to invvestigate is offered. There may be reason somewhere but logic is often well hidden.
This is not the sort of irrationality I was referring to. That which is unexplained is not necessarily irrational.
(regarding atheist scientists)
Oh come on now Christianity didn't found science...the polytheistic Greeks were before us, the Egyptians before them. The Chinese were romping away. Even the Muslims got stuck in properly before the west. We (the west)only started to pull back properly during the renaissance and admittedly we did one hell of a job....but we were still standing on the shoulders' of giants.
Giants indeed! All of whom also unwittingly borrowed from what would become the Christian worldview.
Christian mindsets are not compulsory to science I promise you!
The formation of this sentence would not have been possible if the Christian world view is false.
Nor is religion necessary.
That depends on what you mean by religion but the existence of an eternal, personal, intelligent, triune God must be presupposed in order to have a logically coherent world view. All others lead to irrational question begging, circular reasoning or some other such fallacy of logic and are therefore irrational.
Einstein was born and raised a Jew....but became known as a humanist and is on record as greatly admiring Buddhism as his 'cosmic religion for the future'
Einstein is in Hell today because he rejected the blood of God which was shed for his sake. And all the while he was borrowing from the Christian world view every time he uttered a coherent sentence.
Yeah we have irrational numbers too! :think:
Not only that, but your entire world view makes it impossible for you to know anything at all for certain. You think you know because you're not stupid and you know how to string several thoughts together in a coherent fashion that leads to conclusions which are useful to you in your daily life, but in reality you are fundamentally incapable of accounting for the existence of the logic that allows you to do this. If pressed you couldn't even prove absolutely that you are even reading this post right now. For all you know you're a figment of someone else's imagination or are living in the Matrix or something (that's a great movie by the way, if you haven't seen it).
Not sure I got you on this :dizzy:
Yeah I know, that's the same reaction I had when I was first introduced to this idea. If you're into philosophy at all, you should read a book called "The Big Questions" by Nils ch. Rauhut. Or if you don't want a whole book just do a Google search on epistemology and look at the first few links. You'd be amazed at how difficult it is to prove that you're even awake. In fact, unless you begin with the correct set of presuppositions, it's quite impossible really.
I would appreciate the extra posts if that's possible please. One thing to mention though that if your argument were to be right I don't see why it is necessary for it to endorse Christianity and not another belief system. Why any specific belief?
Well getting down to a specific belief system is very complicated and the discussion would take me outside of my level of expertise. I've only read enough on the subject to be familiar with it's premise and a hand full of very rudimentary arguments which are used. One of which I offered in my last post which you seem to have found less than impactful.
The field of theological study is known as Presuppositionalism and it is quite a specialized field indeed. It is a particular form of Christian apologetics which was developed by a man named Dr. Cornelius Van Til. A brilliant man who, if he had been willing to step for even a moment away from his precious Calvinism, would have truly revolutionized the Christian apologetic world. His impact would likely have been on the order of his beloved Calvin or perhaps even Luther. As it is, he's made no small contribution and will certainly go down in Calvinist circles as being the greatest apologist of the 20th century.
There is lots and lots of stuff available about this subject but I would start with the following article.
CORNELIUS VAN TIL AND THE REFORMATION OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS
Once you've read it, let me know. I'll be very interested in your reaction to it. And if you want more links, I'll of course be happy to post them.
Resting in Him,
Clete
