quote:
When I tackle an opponent, my main thrust is to discern their motive for argument. Broken down, it simply means that believers want people to see why they believe and that belief is rational. You seem content with challenging this assumption. I would dare to ask you why? Do you honestly believe that people are better off believing--based on inconclusive evidence thus far--that Jesus was at best mortal and historical and that the God of the Bible...or any other religion---simply likely does not exist?
My motive is to get at the truth. Now I think that there is a good case that people are not better off in thrall to deceivers, but that is secondary.
The motives behind an argument - at least when dealing with truth claims are not a good guide to whether the claims are true. There may be good reasons for deception, there may be bad motives for telling the truth. Your guesses as to the motives of others is even less reliable. For instance GDR may have had good reasons for claiming that Jesus was not talking about the End Times in Mark 13, but the allusions to Daniel’s End Times prophecies argue otherwise.
RZIM writes:
The answers that Ravi and John provide are both kind and insightful.
In their response, they clarify that:
Any point of view is exclusive of all other points of view.
The real question is which point of view is true.
I would question that it is true that Any point of view is exclusive of all other points of view - points of view can obviously intersect, and I see no reason why one point of view cannot be a proper subset of another.
We can fairly test the major worldview by examining how well they answer four questions:
A. Origin
B. Meaning
C. Morality
D. Destiny
I question whether Destiny is a relevant issue at all. I certainly question whether it is possible to know the truth about it.
The answer to each question must meet two criteria:
A. It must correspond to the truth - matching empirical evidence or the tests of reason
B. It must fit together with the answers to the three other questions - coherence.
I have to say that I think that they must be applying the first criterion quite loosely.
Finally, there are really only three fundamental worldviews:
A. Only the universe exists (e.g., naturalism).
B. Only God exists.
C. Both God and the universe exist (e.g., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).
I have to say that option 3 includes drastically different worldviews, including (at least some forms of) Buddhism and Deism - and many others - as well as the Abrahamic faiths. I don’t think you can get a coherent set of answers to their questions out of it, so how can it qualify as a worldview ?