Underlying Philosophy

Dr. Adequate,First, let me rephrase the metaphysical question: what is the nature of reality? You - as most everyone else on this forum - are placing knowing (epistemology) above reality (metaphysics). There is a reason I asked the questions in the order that I did; because metaphysics necessarily comes before epistemology. You must first answer the metaphysical question before you can answer the epistemological question. You said that the answer to the first question must be "deduced", but it shouldn't be.And I'm not just arbitrarily saying you must do this. Note that you said you must observe the world in order to determine what things exist. This statement is an epistemological statement. However, it has an underlying metaphysical belief: that we can observe the world, and that by doing so, we [i]can[i/] determine what things exist.. Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.

Hyroglyphx, Is matter the only reality? Okay. For example (note that this is exclusively an example; I'm not saying you believe this), if you were to say that reality is contained in matter, then I could start racking off the implications of this. For example, if all is matter, then all my actions amount to is the actions of chemicals within my brain, whose actions are pre-programmed, and over which I have no control. So we can then conclude that it doesn't matter what I do, because if I do something, it isn't really me that is doing it, it's just my brain, over which I have no control. So then I could live my life just following every natural impulse I felt was going on in my brain, and ultimately just caring about nothing.That is one way you could live your life if you believed that all that reality amounted to was matter. Oh really? Tell my why?And just as an aside, I'm not saying that my speaking of a statement makes it true. To respond to your statement, my saying that God is real doesn't make it so. I was just answering the metaphysical question. With regards to my above question (tell my why [I can't win an argument by saying that I'm right]?), I was trailing off onto a different discussion.So, I asked the question, "what is real?", or, "what is the nature of reality?", and I simply answered by stating my belief; that God is real. I did not attempt to bring any evidence in support of the claim, because that wasn't the point of the question. I'm not expecting you to bring evidence either. I just want you to answer the question. Way to rip my statements out of context. Um, no this isn't evidence. I was explaining to you why I answered the question in the format that I did. In my answer, I separated God from God's creation, so you would understand them to be different (because God is not contained within His creation).And just out of curiosity, with regards to your signature, do you know who Blaise Pascal is? Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.

dwise1, Then we can just discount it, because I think the entire story is bad because the answers to both of the questions were faulty.So I then ask "why is death bad?".

This is a very badly perverted view of my beliefs. Giving glory to God is enjoyable. God is merciful to us because He gave us a way of giving glory to Him. In fact, we who believe that He has saved us would be foolish to do anything but glory in God. Rather than asking "why should we glory in Him?", we should be asking "why was He so merciful as to let us be able to glory in Him?", and further, "why was He so merciful as to give us a reason to glory in Him?". To give glory to God, in that they provide a testament of God's glory through his handiwork. Well it should have been the reality of the situation for those children.As to how I know this, I have been trying to show you, but I'm having a difficult time because you won't answer my simple questions (such as "what is real").Ultimately though, as a Christian, the reason we shouldn't commit suicide is because we were created by God in His image, and to kill ourselves would be killing one that is created in the image of God.

Huntard,Your notions of morality seem very vague. You said at one point that there is not only one correct standard: I then said "the way that you decide which choice is the right one is by the standard of experience", to which you replied: yep.So in the second case you say that the only standard that can be used in order to determine right and wrong is experience.Or maybe I misinterpreted something you said. If so, please correct me, and then elaborate a little bit on your views of morals. Hmmm. A skepticist would be seen as saying "we have no way of knowing anything", or "we cannot define morality", or other such "skeptical" statements. As far as I have seen, you don't seem to very skeptical though, because you would agree that certain things are absolutely wrong, such as murder. A skeptic would say that "you can't know whether or not murder is wrong. Explain.

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Here is another inconsistency: You then said: So in the first case, you said that your truth is derived from "the evidence". The first objection I would have against this is that you cannot provide evidence for support of everything you believe. A simple example of this is the laws of logic. You cannot use a logical argument (or logically interpreted evidence) to prove the validity of the laws of logic, without invoking the laws of logic themselves, for if you were to logically interpret evidence that supported the laws of logic, you would be using the laws of logic to interpret the evidence, which isn't allowed (at least, it isn't allowed by you, who say there are no presuppositions).The second objection is that...you denied it yourself, by saying that you rely on your own personal experience to decide what is the correct thing to do. To say one should do something in a particular situation is a truth claim, so therefore, your relying on experience for truth is inconsistent with your first statement that you only rely on evidence.Or, we could dig a little deeper. You said: This itself is a truth claim. So how did you conclude that there is only one correct standard for a given situation? How do you know that there aren't two? Or three? Or is it undefinable? What standard did you use to justify this truth claim (that there is only one correct standard for a given situation)? Or did you presuppose that there is only one correct choice? I'm sorry you wasted time telling me this because your statement has no effect on what I believe. Do you even have any idea what I do believe? I don't think so. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). In other words, "ain't nobody innocent, and that's why 10 out of 10 people die". So you can just say however much you want that you hate God, but that has no effect on my beliefs whatsoever. Merely making the statement that "God is mean" has no effect on whether or not God is mean. And as I have shown already, God doesn't kill innocents, because nobody is innocent. Before I answer, you need to tell me just where you come of saying that there are moral absolutes. These moral absolutes are just horribly inconsistent unless there is no god.So why is rape bad? You would probably say because it's bad for society, or bad for the species, or some other such question-begging statement. Besides question begging, you have no basis for saying that rape is bad for the victim. Suppose the raper gets more enjoyment out of it than the victim got hurt? And as I mentioned earlier, to say rape is bad because "it's bad for society/the species" is begging the question. I could then ask "why is it bad for society/the species?".Or why is stealing bad? Suppose the robber was starving to death, and they would have died had they not stolen food? Wouldn't it have been considered bad for the species if the robber had died?One closing question. Are the moral absolutes you mentioned material, or immaterial? No. If a parent were to command their child to commit a sin, then certainly it wouldn't be rebellion to disobey the command. This is fairly obvious, and to interpret this out of scripture might actually involve reading between the lines...what a novel concept.And also, rebellion involves more than just disobedience to one command. It involves general disrespect for authorities, repeated disobedience, and dishonoring of parents.You also said God condones slavery. First of all...so what? From your worldview, why is slavery wrong? Second of all, you need to bring the references that you are referring to.

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I think the discussion on death is hopeless.So is the discussion of orangutans.And so is the one on Hitler.

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Regarding the metaphysical question I asked.Let me rephrase it: what is the nature of reality?This question is very specific, so just try to answer with one of your more fundamental beliefs about reality. You could give multiple answers if you wish. Here is my answer: God exists as an immaterial, infinite, eternal, and holy being, who created the universe and all that is therein, including man, whom He created in the image of himself.I gave this answer because it is one of my most fundamental beliefs about reality. Also, the point of my asking this question is not to see who's answer has the most evidence in support of it. I just want you to give me an answer about what you believe.To rephrase the epistemological question: what is the nature of human knowledge?So use your answers to these questions to answer the 3rd question which is: what is the nature of good and evil? So you're appealing to experience to prove that experience is reliable? How can you do this? How do you know that any experiences are reliable? How do you know that your memory is reliable? How do you know that anything which you recall experienced throughout your life is reliable, and that it somehow relates to current events? Your reply cannot be "my experiences have always shown experience to be reliable", because this is circular reasoning, because you first assume that your experiences are reliable, and then conclude that your experiences must be reliable.

Tesla, Not to seem as though I am disagreeing with everyone on here, but I do disagree strongly with attempting to mix God and evolution together. The only way in which you can do so is to lie to yourself about the Genesis account of creation, which is about as precise and clear as it can be as to the length of time it took God to create the universe.But before I go any further with discussing this with you, I need to find out what exactly you do believe about the Genesis account of Creation, what you believe about how the evolutionary time scale fits into the Genesis time scale, or if you believe Genesis 1-3 is allegorical, or whatever.There are greatly varying views amongst theistic evolutionists, so before I present my arguments, I need you to tell me what you believe.Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.

Dr. Adequate, Above all, I don't think I've got it all right. In fact, I don't believe anybody has it completely right. Only God's word has it completely right, so that is what all Christians should refer to in order to come up with their beliefs.The reason, however, that I do not want you quoting Christian leaders as an attack on me, is because I don't necessarily believe the same things that the Christian leaders did. And furthermore - since the Bible is my ultimate authority - ,although I may read the writings of Christian leaders and see truth in them, I do not take their writings as my ultimate authority. When you're arguing with me, you have to argue with me (obviously), not with the beliefs of Christian leaders. And arguing with me necessarily involves arguing with the Bible (since the Bible is my ultimate authority).So anyways, I hope that was an adequate explanation for my statement.

PaulK, So you admit that some metaphysical assumptions must be made before producing an epistemology? Why do you then condemn my metaphysical beliefs? I am placing reality (metaphysics) before epistemology, which is exactly what you said I should do. Right? Wasn't the question I asked a metaphysical one (what is the nature of reality)? You admitted that one must have basic metaphysical beliefs (beliefs about reality) before an epistemological method can be formed. For example, suppose you said "the best way to find out what a tree feels like is to go outside and touch it". This is, of course, a true statement. But it does have an underlying metaphysical belief, one that must be assumed (whether it be consciously or sub-consciously) before you can confidently go outside and touch the tree - that you can go outside and touch the tree. This is a basic of example of "metaphysics before epistemology". Another metaphysical question is "is God real? If so, what is his nature?". The reason the answer to this question is so important is because of this: if God is real, and if He is then omnipotent and omniscient, and if he created this earth, and if the Bible then be true, all of our beliefs will be radically influenced by our belief or non-belief in God. This is why one must presume God or no god as a metaphysical belief.Some people will say though, that they take a "neutral" stance by weighing the evidence for both sides. However, this makes God out to be a minor ethical belief, because note that the person was making his epistemological assumptions before taking God into account. If one takes this outlook (of placing knowing before God), they can come to very wrong conclusions.However, the point I have been trying to make is that everyone, whether they admit it or not, is suppressing the fact that they believe in God, because no worldview can account for everything we do and the way that we act other than the Christian worldview.An example is with Huntard, who cannot prove why he believes murder to be wrong (at least in some situations). If I ask him why murder is bad, he'll say "because it's bad for society". I then ask "why is it bad for society?", and he'll say "because it makes society unstable". I would then ask "why does it make society unstable?", to which he would reply with another answer that doesn't really account for good and bad, or stability and instability. You see, he has caught himself in an infinite regress, in which he'll constantly take a step back and say why murder is wrong, but never account for wrong itself.

Dr. Adequate, You bring up a very excellent point that I should have brought up myself. If I just make a random statement, you have no way of knowing whether I drew that conclusion from the Bible, or from my own thinking. Ultimately, all I say should have its roots in the Bible, and if I say anything that is inconsistent with the Bible, or that denies the Bible, then you have every right in the world to point out my inconsistency. And you don't necessarily have a good reason to believe that my interpretation of the Bible is any better than another Christian's interpretation, nor would I claim that mine is better. However, another Christian's interpretation is not necessarily my own interpretation. There are most likely cases where some Christian interpreted the Bible better than me, and there are most likely some case where I have interpreted the Bible better.So anyways, my hope is that everything I say on here has its roots in the Bible, and that I say nothing that is inconsistent or that denies the teachings of the Bible itself.But given this particular discussion (of theism vs. atheism), I would be willing to bet that most Christians would not disagree with my particular method of apologetic, one which I believe to be firmly rooted in scripture.I hope this has satisfied your objections.Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.

Okay. This answer accounts for what things you believe to be real, although it didn't exactly answer "what is the nature of reality". But we'll work with this answer anyways. First, have you ever observed the laws of logic, or an effect of the laws of logic? You absolutely cannot account for the origin of the laws of logic without invoking the use of the same, because to use the powers of your mind (and thus think logically) to observe something (e.g., the laws of logic), is to use the laws of logic, and thus assume the existence of that which you are trying to prove exists! The worst consequence of this is that you have no way of proving where the laws of logic came from, and also that you can't prove the laws of logic exist.So of course the obvious question is this: how do I account for the laws of logic?I assume God exists, and that the Bible is true. I read Genesis and see that God created Adam in his own image, and that God spoke with Adam and reasoned with Him. From this I then know that God must have given man the ability to think logically. I also know that the laws of logic originated when God created man in His own image.Anyways, getting back to the atheist's problem with the laws of logic...I said you cannot account for the origin of the laws of logic, to which you replied that the laws of logic are merely human constructs. Does this mean that before the Greeks formalized the laws of logic (e.g., a=a), "a" wasn't always equal to "a"? Or do you admit that "a" has always been equal to "a", even before humans evolved and then formalized this truth (that a=a) into a law? Obviously, a=a has always been true, which means it was a sort of "law" before humans even existed. Obviously then, a=a is not a human construct. Although the symbols and the idea of a symbol representing a particular object etc. are human constructs, there was never a point in time where one object was not equivalent to itself.So how can an atheist account for the origin of the laws of logic?Here is another example that is a little more difficult to deal with than a=a.Here is a law of logic that was formalized by the Greeks: if p then q, p is true, so q must be true.Now don't you think that the Greeks may have actually invoked the use of this law in order to formalize it? Perhaps they looked at examples of this law around them, and saw that whenever this law was followed, correct conclusions were made. They then concluded that the law was valid.But don't you see how they are using this law of logic? They have a premise that goes something like this: "if something (e.g., aforementioned law of logic) is observed to be true numerous times, then that something (aforementioned law of logic) is valid".So in order to validate the law of logic I gave as an example, they must first use that law of logic. So what they are doing is presuming that the law of logic I mentioned is true before they have proved it to be true. So if the Greeks didn't make up that law of logic, who did? The big bang?...Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.

I added more to my message #349.

God most certainly does provide an explanation for the reliability of memory, and a very simple one at that: He created us that way.This explanation I gave provides a model that would make sense out of the reliability of our memory, while you don't even have a model. You just assume that your memory is reliable, but never given a reason why.Now of course we all have to assume that our memory is reliable; this is obvious. But I have given a reason why our memories are reliable, and you have not.

dwise1,I don't know about everybody else, but I am not here to call atheists bigots and fools, and tell them that they have their "head in a cockpit". Certainly I believe the atheist position to be foolish, but I'm not going to spend all my time verbalizing it and trying to come up with the best "disses". Instead, I'm trying to debate intelligently, and although your ad-hominem ramblings may fire up other atheists, they do nothing in the way of defending and promoting your worldview, and further, they do not help you win the debate in any way whatsoever.Perhaps before I go any further, I should demonstrate why ad-hominem attacks are useless.So you think I have my head in a cockpit.? I think you have your head in a cockpit too...stalemate.It doesn't matter how much you tell me I have my head in a cockpit, nor does it matter how much I tell you that you have your head in a cockpit. Neither one of us will ever be truly convinced that we have our heads in a cockpit unless logical debate first takes place.

Huntard, So is something always wrong if it causes any distress, pain or suffering for someone? Why does it (rape) cause an unstable society? Or to rephrase the question: what is it about rape that causes an unstable society?I hope you see that you are in an infinite regress. Okay. Then give me your address and I'll come over and steal some of your money and food because I will starve otherwise...or would this be wrong? Your statement means nothing, because you merely made a statement without any proof... Sorry. I meant the Bible references where God condones slavery. Don't you realize that I was answering a question? I was merely answering the question asked! I provided my answer, now you provide yours!

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This next quote is comical. And yet when I ask you about the nature of reality, you tell me that my question is mumbo jumbo. So you are dealing with something (reality) of which' nature you know nothing about...Once again: And yet you refuse to tell me what the nature of that reality is...And also (maybe I'm missing something), I don't really know what you mean when you say that you "test your experiences against reality".

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Another question: do you believe that there are any moral absolutes at all?

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So how in a universe caused by an explosion (the big bang), would you come up with an orderly universe in which there are certain laws of logic that apply to nature, and in which you have the ability to rely on your memory to determine what you should do in the present, and in which we can observe things around us and make correct conclusions, and in which we have the ability to make correct conclusions at all (what if we all thought that since the solar nebula are blue and red, Thor is going to cause a thunderstorm today...?), and in which we can enjoy ourselves, and in which we can somehow sense beauty, and countless other things. How could all these things come about as the result of an explosion?One last question I should ask: why do humans have an aesthetic sense, and animals don't, and how did our aesthetic sense come about as a result of an explosion?

Dr. Adequate, Precisely. The question raised here is this: what/who controls the actions of the brain? What/who is it that controls the chemical reactions? Are the chemical reactions independent, or are they controlled by something else?And also, does the brain have an area in it that causes it to be self-aware?Or can the brain love somebody?I do realize that you are not a materialist (at least you don't seem to be), so this objection isn't pointed at you personally, but at the typical, materialistic atheist. Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.Edited by sac51495, : No reason given.