tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post8289243349819729472..comments2024-03-25T17:35:02.238-04:00Comments on Debunking Christianity: William Lane Craig is an Epistemological Solipsist, RevisitedUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-43591502860885797282009-04-02T13:29:00.000-04:002009-04-02T13:29:00.000-04:00I take issue with statements like "The proper resp...I take issue with statements like "The proper response to someone’s telling me that my belief could be false is, 'So what?' It’s not possibility that matters, it’s probability, So until you give me a good reason to think that my belief is not just possibly true, but probably false, I’m not changing anything about what I believe or what I think I know.".<BR/><BR/>Of course, the sentiment that the statement is trying to express is profound and everyone would be much better off if we all grasped it. However, the word "probability" is misleading and somewhat intellectually dishonest. (I may just be nitpicking semantics here, but this irks me, so I thought I'd share.)<BR/><BR/>"Probability" makes it seem like there are is some element of chance established "objectively", outside of and independent of any human minds, much like the probability that a coin will show heads after being flipped. This is wrong. What is really meant is something much more <I>subjective</I> like "plausibility".<BR/><BR/>Whenever one makes a statement like "Metaphysical Claim A is more probable than Metaphysical Claim B", this is a statement not about A or B, but about the speaker: the speaker thinks finds A more convincing than B. Of course, this seems like a much weaker statement. It is. By using "probable" and forming sentences as if they're statements about objects external to the mind, one passes subjectivity off dressed up as objectivity, and in so doing building up a false air of intellectual strength and authority. This is intellectually dishonest.<BR/><BR/>In the Philosophy of Science, the word "projectibility" is used, which means roughly "plausibility in light of the best available science". This maintains the intellectual honesty about the statement being a subjective judgment while also invoking the authority of the experts in the scientific community.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, I just thought I'd share my two cents about something that's been irking me in atheist writings for a long time :).Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08325824930308097866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-41353309609742252192008-10-16T09:37:00.000-04:002008-10-16T09:37:00.000-04:00Sounds like the classic Camel's Nose in the Tent i...Sounds like the classic Camel's Nose in the Tent idea:<BR/><BR/>You can't prove my belief isn't <I>possible.</I> If it's possible, then it might be <I>probable.</I> Since it's probable, then it might be true. And since anything that might be true probably is true, therefore, my belief is true.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15321466949515992295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-70639601365733561402008-10-16T08:56:00.000-04:002008-10-16T08:56:00.000-04:00You are correct, icelander, and I'll second your r...You are correct, icelander, and I'll second your recommendation of <I>Animatrix</I>. I forgot to mention another similarity: both Christianity and the Matrix have large cult followings, and I'm a big admirer of both, as long as you don't take them seriously.zilchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695741977946935771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-91157742654733002722008-10-16T08:52:00.000-04:002008-10-16T08:52:00.000-04:00Not to go completely off topic, but the idea that ...Not to go completely off topic, but the idea that the Matrix used humans for power isn't really the whole story.<BR/><BR/>Humans had waged a war against the machines and the machines had won. In order to quell future rebellions, the machines captured humanity and put them in bottles.<BR/><BR/>There's also conjecture that the human mind was also used by the machines as massively parallel computation devices, though this is never mentioned in any of the subsequent movies.<BR/><BR/>If you're interested in more of the backstory, I highly recommend "The Animatrix." It fills in a lot of the gaps between the first movie and the last two.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-69524713871244187552008-10-16T01:45:00.000-04:002008-10-16T01:45:00.000-04:00Craig's personal testimony is that he believed 'th...Craig's personal testimony is that he believed 'the great things of the Gospel' before he had any personal experiences.<BR/><BR/>He learned and believed the 'great things of the Gospel' by reading the New Testament.<BR/><BR/>This is what he himself claims.<BR/><BR/>His personal experiences are not evidence that Jesus was resurrected, or even evidence that Jesus lived.<BR/><BR/>His personal experience is that he was once very happy and this was because he had decided to become a Christian.<BR/><BR/>Being joyful that you had decided to become a Christian is not evidence for God, let alone self-authenticating evidence.Steven Carrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11983601793874190779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-58849475686031424472008-10-16T01:09:00.000-04:002008-10-16T01:09:00.000-04:00about the properly basic thing...the distinction b...about the properly basic thing...<BR/>the distinction between properly basic truths and those that are not properly basic is how universally they are held. Buddhists you say, believe the universe is an illusion (as do idealists) but they do not act as though nothing around them is real. Hume didn't believe in cause and effect, but he acted as though it existed because he couldn't act otherwise. The existence of the material world, the continued independent existence of objects, cause and effect, and the existence of other minds are all properly basic beliefs. A belief in God is clearly not.Zachary Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17786827375880464769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-19961797383539722462008-10-15T18:29:00.000-04:002008-10-15T18:29:00.000-04:00This post and the others like it are the things th...This post and the others like it are the things that make this blog one of the most important and interesting on the internet. Very, very well done, John.<BR/><I><BR/>“[A] fideist will not listen to […] critique, by denying the validity of rationality, fideism immunizes itself from any philosophical criticism or rationality. It is like a criminal who refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the court trying him. The fideist may refuse to be recognize the court of rationality, but the court of rationality must go on to try him anyway.” – Michael Young</I>MChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09445387965157596566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-71711716804707389112008-10-15T16:32:00.000-04:002008-10-15T16:32:00.000-04:00Why is rational to believe the universe was not cr...Why is rational to believe the universe was not created 5 minutes ago?<BR/><BR/>Because we have no evidence of any being so powerful as to be able to do such a thing?Steven Carrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11983601793874190779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-10445106102901816402008-10-15T14:55:00.000-04:002008-10-15T14:55:00.000-04:00kiwi said... "The problem is: belief in God is not...kiwi said... <BR/>"The problem is: belief in God is not properly basic."<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/10/william-lane-craig-is-epistemological.html" REL="nofollow">But when Tyro said…<BR/>“I would be content if you are arguing that a belief in the existence of God is like a moral belief”<BR/><BR/>Mark D. Linville said...<BR/>“…I think that both are properly basic.”</A><BR/><BR/>If I didn’t know better, (and I do), I would say that Plantinga’s entire “properly basic” gimmick is just a pile of rhetoric. Does anybody know what chapter and verse of the Bible explains properly basic beliefs?openlyatheisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03799132607816184980noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-83505266138817772322008-10-15T13:26:00.000-04:002008-10-15T13:26:00.000-04:00Hey izm, long time no hear! You are, of course, a...Hey izm, long time no hear! You are, of course, absolutely correct: it is a matter of opinion, whether atheists have more fun than believers or not. I won't swear to it; I just tossed it out there to be silly. And I agree with you about wise use of knowledge: we humans have been blessed, and cursed, with the ability to accumulate great amounts of knowledge, but our inability to use it wisely has wreaked havoc on ourselves, our fellow living beings, and the fragile planet that is our only home.<BR/><BR/>kiwi- what you said. One nit to pick:<BR/><BR/><I>The problem is: belief in God is not properly basic. (Otherwise we would all believe in God, without asking any question!) All attempts to draw a parallel between belief in God and properly basic beliefs like "the universe is not an illusion", or "the world was not created 5 minutes ago" miserably fail.</I><BR/><BR/>I don't see the distinction between "properly basic" beliefs and "not properly basic" beliefs. Could you tell me how to distinguish them, please? Tibetan Buddhism, for instance, holds that the material Universe is indeed <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen" REL="nofollow">an illusion</A>. And it's just an accident of history that there is no religion (as far as I know) that claims the world was created five minutes ago.zilchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695741977946935771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-87526055509587266742008-10-15T12:22:00.000-04:002008-10-15T12:22:00.000-04:00Zilch, "we have more fun" is a matter for oppinon ...Zilch, "we have more fun" is a matter for oppinon isnt it? I mean it is way groovable to pretend meaningfully that god is sysnomious with love and life. ANd a philisophincally appealing metiphore for various ways to interpret master, control and otherwise be the best ourselves that we can be and discover knowledge and wise uses of the same. But silly me, most people's religions foster concern for non of the above. It has to come from someplace deeper, and deeply desired. Something real and impenatrible; some people believe it is love, and life. but most dont seriously care to discover wise use of it.Insanezenmistresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18188433016350019722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-7802921299505207402008-10-15T11:19:00.000-04:002008-10-15T11:19:00.000-04:00Christianity and the Matrix actually have a lot in...Christianity and the Matrix actually have a lot in common. Their similarities, and differences, are well worth considering.<BR/><BR/>Firstly, the viewpoint from the outside, from the point of view of the filmgoer/believer: to believe in the movie at all requires a suspension of disbelief involving several leaps of faith. For instance, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is violated here: raising animals consumes energy, it doesn’t give you energy. The machines would have had to feed the humans more than they would get back. Fundamentalists are fond of brandishing this law as a proof of the impossibility of the evolution of order from disorder, whereas all that it shows is that for order to develop, it must extract energy from the environment.<BR/><BR/>Secondly, the viewpoint from inside the film. Living in the Matrix is like being a fundamentalist: thinking that what you perceive and believe in is the real world, and not wanting to hear or see otherwise. Being an atheist is like being unplugged from the Matrix, although I must say the food is often better here.<BR/><BR/>Third, the world of the Matrix, and the world of belief, are defended and furthered by a complex interaction of evolved structures (the memeplex for faith, the Machine world) and the humans who believe (in God or the Matrix). There's even Original Sin of a sort in the Matrix, at least in the mind of Smith, whose license plate, by the way, is IS 5416 (Isaiah 54:16: <I>Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.</I>) Smith tells the captured and drugged Morpheus that all the animals on Earth have evolved to live in equilibrium, except for humans and viruses, which are like diseases that spread out everywhere. This is of course nonsense, just as Original Sin, similarly pertaining only to humans, is: biological ignorance in both cases.<BR/><BR/>Admittedly, we all live in our own self-made matrices, atheists no less than believers, but (at least I like to think, not wanting to burn in hell any more than the next guy) atheists at least dimly perceive the walls of their preconceptions. And we have more fun.<BR/><BR/>cheers from drizzly Vienna, zilchzilchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695741977946935771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-81130366537091935792008-10-15T11:06:00.001-04:002008-10-15T11:06:00.001-04:00"He's arguing that since it’s rational to believe ..."He's arguing that since it’s rational to believe we’re not in The Matrix or that we have not been created five minutes ago, it’s also rational to believe in God without evidence."<BR/><BR/>No, no, that's a strawman. His point is that there are things we believe without evidence, so to believe in God without evidence should not automatically dismissed as irrational.<BR/><BR/>The problem is: belief in God is not properly basic. (Otherwise we would all believe in God, without asking any question!) All attempts to draw a parallel between belief in God and properly basic beliefs like "the universe is not an illusion", or "the world was not created 5 minutes ago" miserably fail.<BR/><BR/>Is there any person at any point in life who ends up thinking the world was created 5 minutes ago?<BR/><BR/>Anyway, I think we've already said enough, and all attempts to defend Craig have been unsuccessful. I'm sure even Plantinga would strongly disagree with him with some details, as Craig position is deeply irrational.<BR/><BR/>Craig is far too intelligent to not realize his position concerning the Spirit doesn't make any sense. However he's dealing with highly sophisticated philosophy, so he knows fully well his position will appear rational to the casual reader. And that's really just what he is paid forkiwihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05574278615993892853noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-80551258011599675152008-10-15T11:06:00.000-04:002008-10-15T11:06:00.000-04:00by retreating into the "we can't be sure of anythi...by retreating into the "we can't be sure of anything" argument, he negates christianities authority since everything is on an equal footing, so he's got to pick a direction and go, so he chooses to believe that he wasn't created 5 mins ago with lunch,<BR/>but I don't think there is a truly rational basis to do that except from utility. It is more useful not to believe that we were made 5 mins ago. Also there is no "feeling of certainty" in believeing we were made 5 mins ago. It just doesn't "feel" right.<BR/><BR/>So we pick the direction, and that means we have to play by rules consistent with that, which means that rational principles and evidence come into play. <BR/><BR/>so we're back where we started, with the inner witness of the holy spirit being asserted as rational since it just "feels" right.<BR/><BR/>That means that since it just "feels" right to me to have ten chestnuts, no more and no less for dinner every night, that it is rational. <BR/><BR/>Ridiculous. I know its not rational to feel uncomfortable about less or more than ten chestnuts but I do it anyway.<BR/><BR/>There is an emotional element to being certain that adds that little bit of irrationality to us all. Thats one reason why humans can be unpredictable.<BR/><BR/>"It just feels right" as an argument is more irrational coming out of the mouth of a self-proclaimed philosopher than it is coming out of the mouth of a teenager because Craig should know better.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17353286859864448748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-11846489922015211462008-10-15T10:55:00.000-04:002008-10-15T10:55:00.000-04:00If all that is necessary to hold a "rational" beli...If all that is necessary to hold a "rational" belief in this complicated Trinitarian God is that we aren't able to fully disprove the Matrix or Last Thursdayism, what beliefs are irrational?<BR/><BR/>Where does Craig draw the line?Adrianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08694840174170043470noreply@blogger.com