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PRmerger
Guest
I’m just going to show your post again.
No further discussion is required.
QED.
(bold mine)
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No further discussion is required.
QED.
P
PRmerger
Guest
No–you misunderstand.
Lawrence Krauss saying “Here’s an example of something from nothing!” but actually changing what “nothing” means (to “something”) is another example of moving the goalposts.
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PRmerger
Guest
Oh, yes. This is acceptable.
But surely you can understand how curious it is for us Believers to see a secular humanist respond in this manner.
It’s certainly contrary to his approach to every other important question.
I think it speaks volumes about one’s adamantine desire to reject religion.
And one has to wonder why this is.
Often, I find it’s a more emotional rejection rather than an intellectual one. For if one really, truly follows the intellectual leads, using reason alone, one cannot do anything but find himself to be a Believer.
There is some emotional reason that needs to be examined, I think.
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PRmerger
Guest
Fair enough.
But let’s think about this…even if it were true that most folks who examine the evidence for the resurrection started with a belief in the resurrection, what conclusion does this NECESSARILY mean for the evidence?
In fact, what evidence for the resurrection have you examined?
Can you offer which of the arguments for Christ’s resurrection you find most compelling, and why you find it wanting?
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PRmerger
Guest
Perhaps.
But let’s review what we’ve already established:
-you do believe in Objective Morality.
-you do believe in an immaterial, eternal, necessary, transcendent agent which created the universe
-you do believe in the supernatural.
That’s pretty good for a “secular humanist”.
P
PRmerger
Guest
Also, I’d like to follow up on your acknowledgement in an Objective Morality.Perhaps.
But let’s review what we’ve already established:
-you do believe in Objective Morality.
-you do believe in an immaterial, eternal, necessary, transcendent agent which created the universe
-you do believe in the supernatural.
That’s pretty good for a “secular humanist”.
Logic dictates that this can only mean an acknowledgement in the existence of God.
-Objective moral truths exist.
-The source of these moral truths is either natural or supernatural in origin
-Natural origins are inadequate to explain objective moral truths.
Therefore, objective moral truths have a supernatural origin.
QED.
K
KnowtheSilence
Guest
I gave my opinion, counter to yours, that Stephen Hawking did not allude to the universe being created from nothing anywhere in that lecture. Even if I’m incorrect about that, how does it constitute a shifting of the goalposts on my part?
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KnowtheSilence
Guest
While I dislike Krauss’s redefinion of the word “nothing,” his doing it in the book is not a shifting of the goalposts; neither is my bringing it up as an aside.
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PRmerger
Guest
What do you mean by “natural”?
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KnowtheSilence
Guest
No, I can’t, because it is a very common position for atheists and agnostics to take (many of them take it too far, actually).
How so?
How so?
And I find emotional appeals far more common on the side of religious believers, even to the point of being encouraged and celebrated. And I find that reason and evidence point towards naturalism. So we’re in disagreement here as well.
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KnowtheSilence
Guest
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KnowtheSilence
Guest
I disagree with the third premise.
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PRmerger
Guest
This is great evidence for your lack of experience with dialogue with Catholics.
Maybe you’ve spent some time with evangelical Christians or fundamentalists, but I think you should remember you’re on a Catholic forum, in dialogue with knowledgeable Catholics.
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PRmerger
Guest
LOL!
When someone says, “Hey, everyone! I can prove that I bought my wife the Hope Diamond for her anniversary!” And here it is:
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/...OY1Djf-ez9EM6qRF0tYvopd4nO_qSdU4cPesBsLn_q414
and then responds, “That’s what I mean by the Hope Diamond, and all gemologists agree with me on this”…
what do you call that?
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KnowtheSilence
Guest
I’d call it false since he says that all gemologists agree with him.
But if he started by saying that he acknowledges that he knows that this item is different than what most people refer to as “the Hope Diamond” but he gave some sort of at least halfway coherent explanation for why he chose to call this item “the Hpe Diamond,” I wouldn’t say he’s moved and goalposts; he’s just set up some bad goalposts from the start (this would also be more analogous to what Krauss did in his book).
Now, if he said “this is the one-and-only Hope Diamond” and left it at that, and someone argued against that by showing him the Wikipedia page or something, and he countered with “yeah, but this is prettier,” that would be an example of moving the goalposts.
Maybe my take on what counts as moving the goalposts is too nuanced or somethng. Whatever the case, we’ve gotten so far off track here that I’m just going to leave it be now.
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KnowtheSilence
Guest
I’ll admit to that. And I’ll take you at your word if you say that Catholics aren’t like that, even if it doesn’t match my experience.
Of course, it’s still the case that the naturalists and Humanists I know and admire are also not given to relying on emotion over intellect.
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KnowtheSilence
Guest
Necessarily? Nothing. But that wasn’t the point. You said you thought only “the recusant to the obvious” endorses alternate explanations of the accounts of the supposed resurrection, indicating to me that you are concerned that people mis-evaluate the evidence based on prior commitments. That’s a worthwhile concern, but it’s worth turning the same critical eye on believers in the resurrection, is it not? And don’t you suppose that maybe if someone believes that the resurrection occurred as a historical event even before they’ve had the chance to examine the historical evidence themselves, that maybe this would interfere with their evaluation? Particularly if they think there are eternal consequences for rejecting the resurrection?
Various books, articles, and arguements by people such as Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig, CS Lewis, JP Moreland, Josh and Sean McDowell, and others, as well as watching some debates and lectures.
Since no one argument is likely to cinch it, I think the best attempt is what Gary Habermas tries to do with his “minimal facts” approach. The problem is that there are methodological flaws that come back to bite him: he hasn’t shared his data, his method of collecting it favors authors who lean towards historicity, his list of “experts” includes non-experts (Richard Swinburne is one; as much as I respect him as a philosopher, he doesn’t have any credentials in history or New Testament studies), we don’t get a breakdown of where Christians vs non-Christians fall on various “facts,” and it’s not clear where agnostics or undecideds figure into his results. If someone were to fix his errors, I think a strong case could be made (if the data worked out the way he wants it to, of course) .
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PRmerger
Guest
Except, curiously, they will cling to their emotional rejection of religion even when the journey of questioning leads them straight to the Altar.
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PRmerger
Guest
Excellent. Then it was an otiose point.
Can you please summarize what Habermas’ argument for the resurrection is before you offer your criticism with his methodological flaws?
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PRmerger
Guest
I suggest you read some of our magnificent papal encyclicals.
You’ll scarcely find a single appeal to emotion, but rather erudition and scholarly appeals to reason, philosophy, science.
I think, just from our exchanges here, I would guess that you’d really dig Fides et Ratio.
w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html
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