Battle Talk ~ BR IX

[aharvey]

Looks to me like a meaningless tautology, to me: "God created everything so we must believe in God to understand anything. And if you don't believe in God then you don't understand anything (you only think you do) because God created everything."

Yet there is no objective proof that God created anything, or that God created everything, or that God even exists. It's just a meaningless tautology.

In the context of this Battle Royale (which so far looks to be avoiding the supposed topic altogether), I would suggest that God per se is not the object of the relevant presupposition. That is, Hilston et al. are not presupposing a God, or a logical God. Evolution does not pose a conflict with God, or with a logical God. Evolution is a logical concept, indeed, it is an extraordinarily logical concept, to the point of inevitability. Evolutionary theory does pose a conflict with the specific story told in a specific document (collection of documents, actually). And yet lots of people who believe in God, and take the Bible very seriously, have no problems with evolutionary theory. How is that possible? It is because the creationist's fundamental presupposition is not that a logical God exists, but that the series of documents we call the Bible is in fact a single, complete, and inerrant account of the history of the universe. From that presupposition one infers the existence of a particular logical God. One does not assume/presuppose that God exists, and therefore believes what the Bible says. One assumes/presupposes that the Bible is inerrant and complete, and therefore believes that whatever it says about the existence, nature, and actions of God is unquestionably correct. Circular logic at its finest.

 

[jhodgeiii]

If Hilston intends to dismiss the various claims from the grandstands of circular reasoning, it seems he has his work cut out for him.

I don't think that circular reasoning necessarily undermines truth, though it can give good reason to doubt.

 

[jhodgeiii]

AND PLEASE! WHY CAN'T WE EDIT POSTS HERE? (Caps intended)

 

[aharvey]

If Hilston intends to dismiss the various claims from the grandstands of circular reasoning, it seems he has his work cut out for him.

I don't think that circular reasoning necessarily undermines truth, though it can give good reason to doubt.

Circular reasoning does not necessarily undermine truth, but it is necessarily incapable of establishing or demonstrating said truth. The Bible may in fact be complete and inerrant, but one can't establish or demonstrate that fact by assuming it in advance.

 

[SUTG]

Godel was some kinda smart.

Yeah, but he ended up some kind of crazy. His Incompleteness Theorem is very stimulating.

Back on topic: The transcendentalists seem to be wanting to do a giant Modus Ponens, as follows:

K->G
K
:.G

where G=God, and K=Knowledge (or whatever)

I think everyone agrees that the argument is valid. But, for soundness, K needs to be defined, and premise K->G needs to be shown. Otherwise, we are left with:

((K->G)^K)->G

Which is a boring tautology true in all possible worlds.

I hink it is safe to say that Hilston, Clete, Van Til, etc. can focus all of their efforts on showing K->G.

 

[bachartsayid2]

Stratnerd wrote: [I]Throughout your opening post you equate evolution with atheism but these two things are wholly separate. Is it not possible to believe in evolution and in God? I can think of three resolute Christians who did...[/I]

I do not see where Hilston attempts to equate evolution with atheism. He asserts that one holding to the theory of evolution has an incorrect view of God.

Clearly it can be shown that many believe in God but also believe that our current universe came about by purely “natural” processes apart from any supernatural intervention. Hilston is asserting that this, holding to the modern version of evolution, is an irrational position because it is a position that is not aligned with a correct view of God and the truth He has communicated about His creation. Such a position could appear creative, thoughtful, and even be passionately held by a similarly unaligned group or individual. It cannot however be rational.

Faith = taking God @ His Word

 

[bachartsayid2]

Godel was some kinda smart.

Interesting Reading.

I have an article on my desk top "RANDOM REALITY" by
Marcus Chown that quotes Godel. Looks like he uses the same quote. Have you seen th earticle I mentioned?

 

[PureX]

Stratnerd wrote: [I]Throughout your opening post you equate evolution with atheism but these two things are wholly separate. Is it not possible to believe in evolution and in God? I can think of three resolute Christians who did...[/I]

I do not see where Hilston attempts to equate evolution with atheism. He asserts that one holding to the theory of evolution has an incorrect view of God.

Clearly it can be shown that many believe in God but also believe that our current universe came about by purely “natural” processes apart from any supernatural intervention. Hilston is asserting that this, holding to the modern version of evolution, is an irrational position because it is a position that is not aligned with a correct view of God and the truth He has communicated about His creation. Such a position could appear creative, thoughtful, and even be passionately held by a similarly unaligned group or individual. It cannot however be rational.

Faith = taking God @ His Word

All this says is that Hilton's meaningless tautology is based on his own understanding of the bible, and on the God he believes to be depicted, there. Adding the 'inerrent bible theory' to the tautology does nothing whatever to verify it, objectify it, or to give it meaning to anyone but himself.

 

[Johnny]

I do not see where Hilston attempts to equate evolution with atheism.

Thus, the anti-theist/agnostic is without a rational grounding of a major tool in the scientific enterprise, the principle of induction. The Creationist has a rational foundation for believing in the uniformity of nature and that future events under certain conditions will be like past events under similar conditions...This is the religious nature of the Evolutionist worldview. In the case of the Creationist, faith in induction rests upon the nature and character of God. In the case of the Evolutionist, it is a mystery (i.e. axiomatic), it is magic, and a blind religious commitment to man's own imagined autonomy and the authority of his own reason. Evolution, although it employs scientific principles by borrowing them from the Creationist toolbox, is blindly religious, and therefore does not qualify as science.

Here, in the crux of Hilston's arguments, I think this underlying assertion can be found:

 

[Johnny]

Er, I was quoting bachartsayid2 and Hilston respectively.

 

[bob b]

Johnny,
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Hilston is talking about those who believe in God versus those that don't, because neither atheists nor agnostics express a belief in God?

 

[truthteller86]

Looks to me like a meaningless tautology, to me: "God created everything so we must believe in God to understand anything. And if you don't believe in God then you don't understand anything (you only think you do) because God created everything."

Yet there is no objective proof that God created anything, or that God created everything, or that God even exists. It's just a meaningless tautology based on his own beliefs.

PureX, maybe you should be reading or re-reading a different Battle Royale as a prerequisite before you post such jibberish?

 

[Johnny]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Hilston is talking about those who believe in God versus those that don't, because neither atheists nor agnostics express a belief in God?

But his argument that evolution is unscientific requires on an agnostic/atheistic worldview. This is why stratnerd asked about christian evolutionists.

 

[sentientsynth]

I have an article on my desk top "RANDOM REALITY" by
Marcus Chown that quotes Godel. Looks like he uses the same quote. Have you seen th earticle I mentioned?

Bach,

That's an interesting read. Kind of pseudo-science, but cool.

I'm not sure if I really got the connection between Godel's Incompleteness Theorem and chaos. And their paradigm doesn't really address ultimate origins either, but they adopted Leibniz's monad metaphysic.

Those guys seem pretty smart. I see that the paper's dated 2000. Anything more recent from these guys?

SS

 

[PureX]

PureX, maybe you should be reading or re-reading a different Battle Royale as a prerequisite before you post such jibberish?

Maybe you should be backing up such slurs with substance.

 

[PureX]

Here, in the crux of Hilston's arguments, I think this underlying assertion can be found:

"Thus, the anti-theist/agnostic is without a rational grounding of a major tool in the scientific enterprise, the principle of induction. The Creationist has a rational foundation for believing in the uniformity of nature and that future events under certain conditions will be like past events under similar conditions...This is the religious nature of the Evolutionist world-view. In the case of the Creationist, faith in induction rests upon the nature and character of God. In the case of the Evolutionist, it is a mystery (i.e. axiomatic), it is magic, and a blind religious commitment to man's own imagined autonomy and the authority of his own reason. Evolution, although it employs scientific principles by borrowing them from the Creationist toolbox, is blindly religious, and therefore does not qualify as science."

But there is no difference between the two except the word "God" and the personal injection of superstition and anthropomorphication. To the non-theists the fact that existence follows some rules is a mystery that he has learned to trust, because it has proven itself consistent. The same applies to the theist, except that the theist has given this mystery a name, and a mythical story, so that he can "interact" with it as if it were a personage. Both, however, have come to trust in this mystery because it has proven itself consistent, and neither can explain it.

So the differences here are basically irrelevant, except that they tend to cause human beings to view the universe through somewhat different paradigms. The added idea that viewing the universe through a theist's paradigm is inherently accurate while viewing it through a non-theist's paradigm is inherently inaccurate, is not borne out. If anything, it would be more logical to surmise the converse, simply because the more we label and anthropomorphize the mystery, the more other possible views of this mystery we are rejecting out of hand. And this would reasonably be considered an impediment to unraveling the real mystery.

 

[aharvey]

saith bobb: Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Hilston is talking about those who believe in God versus those that don't, because neither atheists nor agnostics express a belief in God?

But his argument that evolution is unscientific requires on an agnostic/atheistic worldview. This is why stratnerd asked about christian evolutionists.

Exactly.

Hilston's argument has nothing to do with believing in God per se; it has everything to do with believing in a complete and inerrant Bible. It may seem that the creationist beef with evolutionary theory stems from the fact that it does not explicitly require godly intervention, but don't believe that for a second. Cell theory, germ theory, the heliocentric theory, in fact all other scientific theories do not explictly invoke God any more than does evolutionary theory, and yet we don't hear a fundamentalist peep about them (with one revealing exception: anyone care to guess which one?). What's the difference? None of these other theories deal with topics discussed in that series of documents collectively referred to as the Bible. Therefore, none of them present any potential conflict with the Bible. With that one rule-proving exception, of course! And even then, the potential conflict becomes a real conflict only if you presuppose that the Bible is literal, complete, and inerrant. So it's not the presupposition of God, it's not the presupposition of the Bible's importance, it's the presupposition of Biblical literalness, completeness, and inerrancy that motivates the creationist attacks on science.

This is all eventually going to present Hilston with a sticky problem, in this debate, at least:

* Presupposing/assuming a logical God does not falsify a logical theory, nor does it falsify a theory that does not specifically invoke godly intervention. Thus, presupposing/assuming a logical God does not falsify evolutionary theory.

* Presupposing/assuming a logical God neither falsifies nor corroborates the completeness and inerrancy of the Bible.

* Presupposing/assuming the completeness and inerrancy of the Bible, on the other hand, does lead to certain conclusions about the existence, nature, and actions of God.

* Presupposing/assuming the Biblical account is true does require presupposing/assuming the evolutionary interpretation of the history of life is false. While you're of course free to leave it at this in your personal belief system, it kinda violates first principles in a debate to claim your opponent is wrong because you assume he is wrong!

Now perhaps Hilston is way ahead of me, and is next planning to somehow validate his assumptions. However, given his expressed distaste at the idea of bringing relevant evidence into this debate, I worry that these efforts will explictly involve pulling us all further and further away from considerations of science and evolution (you know, the supposed topic of this debate!), and deeper and deeper into the vaguest realms of theological philosophy, where style becomes increasingly interchangeable with substance.

 

[bob b]

"Cell theory, germ theory, the heliocentric theory, in fact all other scientific theories do not explictly invoke God any more than does evolutionary theory, and yet we don't hear a fundamentalist peep about them"

If you don't know the fundamental difference between these theories and "goo to you" evolution I feel sorry for you.

BTW, you seem to have missed Hilston's fundamental point also.

 

[fool]

goo to you too.

 

[Johnny]

If you don't know the fundamental difference between these theories and "goo to you" evolution I feel sorry for you.

It's clear you don't have a clue what's going on in this argument, Bob.