(January 11, 2010 at 9:41 am)Dotard Wrote:

(January 10, 2010 at 10:55 am)tackattack Wrote: I will admit that God's imaginary the second atheists admit God exists.

I exist.


Your turn.

OK you exist.. glad we could agree on that. Now what are you going to do about this famine and disease thing?

That's all I have time for right now. Will get back to the rest.

(January 12, 2010 at 9:59 am)rjh4 Wrote: I guess I have a different point of view on this.

God creates the universe and all that is in it and tells us (reveals to us) that He did it and provides enough specifics in history to determine approximately when this happened.

Man rejects what God says and determines that he can discover how the universe came to be without God's help.

Man comes up with an answer that contradicts what God says.

Man determines that he is correct and God is wrong.

Based on man's determination, man accuses God of dishonesty by deceiving us with His creation.

Isn't man brilliant...in his own mind?

Presumably God tells us though the Bible that he created the universe.

If so where is the physical evidence? ( I'm basing this on the supposed bibical timeframe of

six thousand years)

All of the evidence points to a universe billions of years old.

And Humanity doesn't "come up" with an answer that contradicts God,

it just finds that the evidence refutes the Bible.

So therefore Science must be wrong.

This doesn't stop Creationists from using that "evil" science if they think it will

support their fallacious case(which it never does)

(January 13, 2010 at 4:09 am)Zen Badger Wrote: This doesn't stop Creationists from using that "evil" science if they think it will

support their fallacious case(which it never does)

Or, y'know, if they need medicine, technology, or any of the modern advances the scientific method has given us.

(January 12, 2010 at 11:49 am)Tiberius Wrote: I'm sure you'll agree, it is far better to assume materialism and get results which can be used to further advance technology, than to not assume anything and spend your time questioning whether the colour change in the test tube was the result of a chemical reaction or the interference of a supernatural entity.

1. True...but it is even better to have a Biblical world view that presupposes God and the Bible as the Word of God because such a world view can not only account for the uniformity of nature (which can be used to further advance technology) but it can also account for the laws of logic we use in our scientific endeavors, which I do not think materialistic presuppositions can do since the laws of logic are other than matter and/or energy. (I do agree that assuming everything is supernatural and nothing behaves in a law like fashion gets you nowhere, but that is not my world view.)

2. Relative to origins, nothing you said seems to change or refute my statement that if you only uses materialistic assumptions for science and you treat origins as a scientific question and the universe came to be in other than a materialistic manner, then it seems that science would never be able to discover that manner because it would automatically be rejected for its lack of adherence to materialism.

(January 12, 2010 at 11:49 am)Tiberius Wrote: I think you are forgetting the number of scientists who believe in Gods

Actually I was not. That is why I said "scientists in general".

(January 12, 2010 at 11:49 am)Tiberius Wrote: A violation of a law of nature, such that the violation could be easily demonstrated, and such that another law could not be interjected in order to explain the occurrence, or the current law changed to account for the violation.

How would you know? It seems like you could never satisfy the part where you say "such that another law could not be interjected in order to explain the occurrence". It seems like the things that "would constitute a good reason to believe something other than material happened" for you are things that you would never even recognize.

(January 12, 2010 at 11:49 am)Tiberius Wrote: I'd also point out that without the logic we have, the words and things "revealed" to us would make no sense; and neither would your argument that the only way we can really know about God is if he revealed himself to us. Hence your argument that revelation is the only way of knowing God is itself a violation of this revelation. You first need logic in order to understand anything to do with words or language. Thus if your God created everything, it created logic, and our use of logic is relied upon to understand revelation. Would you agree with this?

When I said "The only way we can really know about God is if He revealed Himself to us." I did not mean to imply that revelation is the only thing we need to know God. Certainly we need some sort of intellect and the ability to understand that which is revealed. I meant that we can only know who and what God is, to the extent that He reveals Himself to us. We cannot find God on our own.

I think you are using a loose definition of logic here. Logic in a more formal sense is certainly not needed to understand anything. One can understand much of language without logic. I would not say logic is a precondition for understanding revelation. I think logic is a tool to use for discovering things beyond the basics of God's revelation.

(January 12, 2010 at 11:49 am)Tiberius Wrote: The main ones which I argue are that it does not constitute an argument of proof since it relies on unproven premises (assumptions) which by definition could be wrong, that it is circular by assuming the validity of Christian theism in order to prove the Christian God exists (the Christian God existing being a part of Christian theism), and that ultimately, it sets out to prove the existence of a specific God and utterly fails to do so (at best, it can only attempt a proof of the existence of *some* God).

All proofs go back to some unprovable premises (assumptions) which could be wrong by definition. So based on this, it would seem to follow that you think that there is no such thing as an "argument of proof". True? So does this lead you to reject any world view? If not, why?

As to the circularity, all presuppositions are subject to cirularity to some degree, since presuppositions by definition are taken as self-attesting or self-evidence and not requiring "proof". If one presupposes materialism, then interprets all the facts/evidence in light of this materialistic presupposition, one would then conclude that materialism is confirmed.

Could you explain why you think it utterly fails to prove the existence of a specific God?

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(January 13, 2010 at 4:09 am)Zen Badger Wrote: If so where is the physical evidence? ( I'm basing this on the supposed bibical timeframe of

six thousand years)

All around you. You just interpret it all in a materialistic/evolutionary manner. That is why you do not recognize it for what it is.

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(January 12, 2010 at 10:09 am)Eilonnwy Wrote: Nice how you can put your own little spin on it.

Any reason why I shouldn't?

(January 12, 2010 at 10:09 am)Eilonnwy Wrote: However, you assume that humans decided to go "f*** you, God, we'll find out own way." When in truth it's more along the lines of finding the evidence that overwhelmingly contradicts God and the Bible and then losing faith. That's how it happened with Darwin, and that's how it happens with many other people.

You characterize atheists as children who want to rebel against their parents, when in truth it's a matter of discovering the parents aren't really there.

I don't assume it, that is what the Bible says is going on. Read Romans 1:18-23:

"18For(AJ) the wrath of God(AK) is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be(AL) known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,(AM) have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they(AN) became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22(AO) Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and(AP) exchanged the glory of(AQ) the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."

You may not like it but that's the way it is.

Furthermore, your characterization of the evidence "overwhelmingly" contradicts God and the Bible is merely based on your own presuppositions and how you use them to interpret the evidence. Regardless of how much you want to think you don't have presuppositions, E, you do.

(January 11, 2010 at 12:50 pm)chatpilot Wrote:

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Arguing from the bible or its so called divine authority is counter productive and at the same time invalid in this type of discussion, since in order to do so everyone would have to accept the bible as a divine source of revelation. As atheists I can say with much confidence that I speak for all atheists when I say that we don't accept the bible as the word of god or of divine inspiration. In my opinion any atheist who does is quite rare indeed. I have stated many times that one thing I have issue with is where does man get his idea or concept of god or gods per say? Gods were in my view created by man to explain what was once unknown to man in a pre-scientific age. There is plenty of evidence to support this in world mythologies that date back thousands of years ago. As knowledge grew those myths also had to be modified to try to keep up with mans ever expanding knowledge of the world and universe we inhabit.

Everything Christians claim to know about their god (characteristics, personality, his laws etc.) come from the bible. The bible is the foundation of all of Christianity and any Christian who disagrees with that is in my opinion not a Christian but something else. Christians or any theists for that matter cannot prove that god or gods exist because god only exists in the mind. What you claim to feel is highly subjective since feelings are subject to interpretation by the one feeling them based on what knowledge he associates with those feelings. Thus, feelings are invalid as well. There is no scientific way to prove the existence of god because science and faith are two systems of thought that are completely inconsistent with one another.

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"The bible is the foundation of all of Christianity and any Christian who disagrees with that is in my opinion not a Christian but something else" That is emphaticallly wrong. The foundation of "Christ"ianity is "Christ". Christianity has many foundations for it's doctrines in the bible; but, the thing that seperates Christianity from other religions is their belief in Christ is the son of God and that he is the gateway to salvation. I agree there is no scientific way to prove God, nor should there be. Perhaps science (testing of the tangible) and the spiritual (testing of the intangible) was what you were trying to get at.
I agree that the concept or idea of God only exists in the mind. That doesn't mean that there is something inside or outside our universe that could fit the definition of our idea of God. Maybe a scientist's definition of a quantum singularity or the source of dark energy will end up being the same definition as a layman's idea of God one day. Until that day when science and belief meet, I'm content to let you have yours and I'll have mine with no slanders or ill will.

(January 11, 2010 at 8:30 am)Zen Badger Wrote:

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(January 10, 2010 at 10:55 am)tackattack Wrote: Above supporting my statement that all atheists want to do is pick apart an argument cover it in every, smarmy comment, historically fallacious argumentative data, pages of historic "evidence" until the idea gets so chopped up and reconstituted it's unrecognizable.

No I said "I can't even be an expert in my own opinion because God is an Argument From Authority."

The authority referenced is God's revelations to me personally reflecting in my intuition and personal opinion and not the bible.

I will admit that God's imaginary the second atheists admit God exists. No qualifiers, no double-entendre, no excess wording, simple.

Well of course we pick apart arguments, what did you expect? we're atheists and therefore sceptics.

And if your argument can't withstand scrutiny and examination then it's not much of an argument.

"historically fallacious argumentative data" in what way is it fallacious???

Because it disagrees with the Bible??

And I have to ask, how did God communicate his revelations personally to you?

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Miracles, intuition, synchronicity, answering prayers, near death experience, etc. all admittedly subjective.

(January 11, 2010 at 7:36 pm)LEDO Wrote:

(January 10, 2010 at 10:55 am)tackattack Wrote: I will admit that God's imaginary the second atheists admit God exists.

I admit god exists in your imagination. If atheists would admit god exists, then they wouldn't be atheists. Funny how they are defined that way.

(January 10, 2010 at 11:47 am)leo-rcc Wrote: Admit even. As if we deny it.

Well which one is it? I knew Ledo couldn't leave it unqualified. Well then I admit God is imaginary to you.

(January 13, 2010 at 4:09 am)Zen Badger Wrote: All of the evidence points to a universe billions of years old.

exactly, i dont see why some people would think the world is 6000 years old. do they honestly think that dinosaurs, apemen and all that lived over only a few thousand years? unless they dont believe that either, then im just talking bullcrap as usual :S

(January 13, 2010 at 10:21 am)rjh4 Wrote:

(January 12, 2010 at 11:49 am)Tiberius Wrote: I'm sure you'll agree, it is far better to assume materialism and get results which can be used to further advance technology, than to not assume anything and spend your time questioning whether the colour change in the test tube was the result of a chemical reaction or the interference of a supernatural entity.

1. True...but it is even better to have a Biblical world view that presupposes God and the Bible as the Word of God because such a world view can not only account for the uniformity of nature (which can be used to further advance technology) but it can also account for the laws of logic we use in our scientific endeavors, which I do not think materialistic presuppositions can do since the laws of logic are other than matter and/or energy. (I do agree that assuming everything is supernatural and nothing behaves in a law like fashion gets you nowhere, but that is not my world view.)

Oh come on, we both know that the only time progress was ever made in science is when the explanation "god did it" was ignored in favour of digging deeper - setting aside the claims of the bible and the mindset it's based upon in favour of a new methodology for evaluating truth claims, the scientific method. It has already achieved more for our species in a few hundred years than religious insight ever achieved.

God can be used to explain anything, but it is more of an intellectual blank cheque cashed with the bank of ignorance - It offers you absolutely zero understanding, testability or predictability, three things that are absolutely essential in order to speak of a truth claim with any level of certainty.

Quote:2. Relative to origins, nothing you said seems to change or refute my statement that if you only uses materialistic assumptions for science and you treat origins as a scientific question and the universe came to be in other than a materialistic manner, then it seems that science would never be able to discover that manner because it would automatically be rejected for its lack of adherence to materialism.

Assuming the explanation is not materialistic of course, and thus far there is absolutely no reason to assume the existence of undetermined supernatural influence on the creation of the universe - it will get you absolutely nowhere towards understanding what happened, why or how and thus no further from the point you were at when you had no supernatural explanations. It's all just another case of the carte blanche.

Any explanation for the origins of the universe that involve matter or energy would be entirely consistent with the materialistic world view.

Quote:

(January 12, 2010 at 11:49 am)Tiberius Wrote: I think you are forgetting the number of scientists who believe in Gods

Actually I was not. That is why I said "scientists in general".

You'll need to be more specific - 60% of the entire scientific community believe in a God, but for biologists and physicists that number is much lower, like in the region of >20%.

Quote:

(January 12, 2010 at 11:49 am)Tiberius Wrote: A violation of a law of nature, such that the violation could be easily demonstrated, and such that another law could not be interjected in order to explain the occurrence, or the current law changed to account for the violation.

How would you know? It seems like you could never satisfy the part where you say "such that another law could not be interjected in order to explain the occurrence". It seems like the things that "would constitute a good reason to believe something other than material happened" for you are things that you would never even recognize.

An unassisted human body floating into the sky would be a good enough example, no law of our universe would allow for such a phenomenon, not the failure of gravity because everything else would be observing the usual effects of gravity, not even negatively charged exotic matter which, while allowing an object to fall away from gravity (repelled by a stronger force) would repel the human into inorganic matter instantaneously.

Quote:

(January 12, 2010 at 11:49 am)Tiberius Wrote: I'd also point out that without the logic we have, the words and things "revealed" to us would make no sense; and neither would your argument that the only way we can really know about God is if he revealed himself to us. Hence your argument that revelation is the only way of knowing God is itself a violation of this revelation. You first need logic in order to understand anything to do with words or language. Thus if your God created everything, it created logic, and our use of logic is relied upon to understand revelation. Would you agree with this?

When I said "The only way we can really know about God is if He revealed Himself to us." I did not mean to imply that revelation is the only thing we need to know God. Certainly we need some sort of intellect and the ability to understand that which is revealed. I meant that we can only know who and what God is, to the extent that He reveals Himself to us. We cannot find God on our own.

You might as well just say it's all in your head, because you have managed to part yourself no further from that conclusion.

Quote:I think you are using a loose definition of logic here. Logic in a more formal sense is certainly not needed to understand anything. One can understand much of language without logic. I would not say logic is a precondition for understanding revelation. I think logic is a tool to use for discovering things beyond the basics of God's revelation.

The internal language of the brain in which all of these abstracts are realised is a process of mechanism, the logical interaction of neurons and pathways in the brain to represent information. To say that we can understand without logic is nonsense as it is logic than allows the brain (or any system) to function in the first place.

Quote:

(January 13, 2010 at 4:09 am)Zen Badger Wrote: If so where is the physical evidence? ( I'm basing this on the supposed bibical timeframe of

six thousand years)

All around you. You just interpret it all in a materialistic/evolutionary manner. That is why you do not recognize it for what it is.

And you interpret it from a literal biblical point of view, so claiming that the approach is the problem without offering a reason for why it is flawed or any evidence to support your statement gets you absolutely nowhere towards verifying the truth of your claims.

So you want to try again, some evidence this time, not a conclusion based on your presuppositions.

(January 13, 2010 at 10:21 am)rjh4 Wrote: 1. True...but it is even better to have a Biblical world view that presupposes God and the Bible as the Word of God because such a world view can not only account for the uniformity of nature (which can be used to further advance technology) but it can also account for the laws of logic we use in our scientific endeavors, which I do not think materialistic presuppositions can do since the laws of logic are other than matter and/or energy. (I do agree that assuming everything is supernatural and nothing behaves in a law like fashion gets you nowhere, but that is not my world view.)

Yet unless you can prove God exists (and that the God you prove exists is the Christian God), your Biblical world view is nothing more than mindless speculation, thrown together and held as truth without good reason. I could equally argue that the Flying Spaghetti Monster accounts for the uniformity of nature, laws of logic, etc, etc, or any other God I can think of.

It should also be pointed out to you that the Bible has an abismal track record of making truthful claims about reality. In Genesis alone, we have a creation story that reflects none of what nature tells us happened, the moon being described as a "light" (it is not one), and a global flood that le, leaves no trace whatsoever (despite it happening recently in terms of geological time), and fails to account for the diversity of animals and their locations on every land-mass on Earth.

Quote:2. Relative to origins, nothing you said seems to change or refute my statement that if you only uses materialistic assumptions for science and you treat origins as a scientific question and the universe came to be in other than a materialistic manner, then it seems that science would never be able to discover that manner because it would automatically be rejected for its lack of adherence to materialism.

No, science would not discover this answer, and I still hold that science is not meant to discover such answers! Science is the observation of nature, not super-nature. If the super-natural exists, and someone develops an accurate way of observing and learning about it, then the study of the supernatural shall sit next to science. However, I no of no such methods (at least not reliable un-debunked ones) that do this.

Quote:Actually I was not. That is why I said "scientists in general".

theVOID answered this point well. Science has changed before, and it can again. Matter was first studied through pre-scientific methods, and then later when we defined energy, that was studied. If we find some other form of "thing" (can't think of the better word, sorry!) to study, it will be incorporated.

Quote:How would you know? It seems like you could never satisfy the part where you say "such that another law could not be interjected in order to explain the occurrence". It seems like the things that "would constitute a good reason to believe something other than material happened" for you are things that you would never even recognize.

You could technically not satisfy on an objective level, no, but you could certainly be satisfied on a subjective level. As for your last assertion, I disagree completely. If the stars were to rearrange themselves to spell out a sentence, say, "Hey guys, I exist. - God", then technically I would have to admit that to some degree it could all just be coincidence, but I would probably be convinced of some kind of supernatural force at work.

Quote:I think you are using a loose definition of logic here. Logic in a more formal sense is certainly not needed to understand anything. One can understand much of language without logic. I would not say logic is a precondition for understanding revelation. I think logic is a tool to use for discovering things beyond the basics of God's revelation.

I meant logic in terms of our way of thinking rather than formal definitions of logic. Our brains use logic to reason and form language. Formal logic is more of a description of how we think, and corrections to how we think (in the form of fallacies) based on the three laws.

Quote:All proofs go back to some unprovable premises (assumptions) which could be wrong by definition. So based on this, it would seem to follow that you think that there is no such thing as an "argument of proof". True? So does this lead you to reject any world view? If not, why?

Not all proofs. Certainly the three laws of logic and their proofs of validity rest on no unprovable premises, since for one of them to be untrue would be a contradiction of another law, which would lead to the "untrue" law to be true. All arguments that come directly off these laws are likewise confirmed and true. An example of such an argument would be "I think, therefore I am" which is the famous Descartes proof of self-existence. Using the principle that anything with an attribute exists in some form (otherwise it cannot have that attribute), further defining something that thinks as having an attribute of "thinking" and therefore of existence, to ponder about whether you actually exist is to prove that you do.

Quote:As to the circularity, all presuppositions are subject to cirularity to some degree, since presuppositions by definition are taken as self-attesting or self-evidence and not requiring "proof". If one presupposes materialism, then interprets all the facts/evidence in light of this materialistic presupposition, one would then conclude that materialism is confirmed.

No, that is not how presuppositions works. Presuppositions are as good as assumptions (and by that, I mean not very good at all). For instance:

X - Some presupposition.
Y - Some other presupposition that contradicts some part of X (but is not necessarily equal to ¬X)

One could argue, "presupposing X, we see that Z is explained, therefore C1". However, one could also argue "presupposing Y, we see that Z is explained, therefore C2".

It is in this sense that TAG fails as well. One can presuppose Christian theism, explain the existence of morality or knowledge, and say that God exists. One can also presuppose evolutionary morality, the evolution of brain patterns, etc, etc, and explain the exact same thing, coming to no conclusion about God's existence.

"The bible is the foundation of all of Christianity and any Christian who disagrees with that is in my opinion not a Christian but something else"

tackattack let me clarify what I meant by the above statement. The bible is supposedly the divinely inspired word of god. Without it you would have no information about god whatsoever to base your Judaic, Christian, or Muslim beliefs on since they are all derived from the bible itself. In fact you would not even have known of the alleged existence of Christ if it were not for the writings in the NEw Testament. In other words putting it simply without the bible there is no Christ so in that context the bible is the foundation of all of Christianity. Of course Christianity is based on the person of Christ but everything you supposedly know about Christ comes from the tales of that fictional work.

(January 13, 2010 at 11:10 am)theVOID Wrote: Oh come on, we both know that the only time progress was ever made in science is when the explanation "god did it" was ignored in favour of digging deeper - setting aside the claims of the bible and the mindset it's based upon in favour of a new methodology for evaluating truth claims, the scientific method.

Your use of the word “progress” presupposes we have the same standard/definition for evaluating this statement. I doubt we do.

Many of the giants in science were Bible believing Christians who practiced science in that light and made much progress. So I would have to disagree with your statement even if we agreed on a standard/definition for the word “progress”. I do not see any reason why the Bible must be ignored to have progress in science.

So the scientific method is the new method for evaluating all truth claims? That seems to be what you are saying. So how does the scientific method evaluate the following truth claims?

“The scientific method is an appropriate method for measuring truth claims.”
“Any statement is either true or false.”

I hope you now see that the scientific method is not quite as powerful that you seem to claim it to be. It is limited in what it can do.

(January 13, 2010 at 11:10 am)theVOID Wrote: It has already achieved more for our species in a few hundred years than religious insight ever achieved.

I don’t see how the things that science has achieved for mankind can ever come close to the salvation for millions through Christianity.

(January 13, 2010 at 11:10 am)theVOID Wrote: God can be used to explain anything, but it is more of an intellectual blank cheque cashed with the bank of ignorance - It offers you absolutely zero understanding, testability or predictability, three things that are absolutely essential in order to speak of a truth claim with any level of certainty.

Straw man. I never have taken the position that God should be used to explain everything. Nor have I taken the position that science is bad or not useful or anything like this. My position is, however, that the scientific method is not more authoritative than the Word of God, the Bible.

(January 13, 2010 at 11:10 am)theVOID Wrote: Assuming the explanation is not materialistic of course, and thus far there is absolutely no reason to assume the existence of undetermined supernatural influence on the creation of the universe

Merely your opinion within your own world view.

I also wonder how the scientific method is used to evaluate the truth statement?

“Thus far there is absolutely no reason to assume the existence of undetermined supernatural influence on the creation of the universe.”

(January 13, 2010 at 11:10 am)theVOID Wrote: - it will get you absolutely nowhere towards understanding what happened, why or how and thus no further from the point you were at when you had no supernatural explanations. It's all just another case of the carte blanche.

Look at it from your own world view. If God created the universe and everything therein, then the mere statement “God created the universe” if taken as true gives you more understanding of what happened than any materialistic hypothesis ever could. Your statement, therefore, is merely showing your own bias.

(January 13, 2010 at 11:10 am)theVOID Wrote: The internal language of the brain in which all of these abstracts are realised is a process of mechanism, the logical interaction of neurons and pathways in the brain to represent information. To say that we can understand without logic is nonsense as it is logic than allows the brain (or any system) to function in the first place.

I was referring to the laws of logic not the type you describe here.

(January 13, 2010 at 11:10 am)theVOID Wrote: And you interpret it from a literal biblical point of view, so claiming that the approach is the problem without offering a reason for why it is flawed or any evidence to support your statement gets you absolutely nowhere towards verifying the truth of your claims.

I do interpret it from a literal biblical point of view.

Here are some reasons for why I think your process is flawed.

Looking at things from a non-believer’s point of view:

You seem to hold to an atheistic/materialistic/evolutionary world view. It does not seem to me that such an atheistic/materialistic/evolutionary world view can support anything other than relativistic truth since it seems that truth, morals, logic are accounted for in such a world view as being solely due to the genetics of a person and the electrical impulses in a person’s mind (possibly as a result of other causes, such as environmental ones). If this is the case, from your world view how can you say that any other person’s view or interpretation of evidence is any more accurate than yours? Wouldn’t it just mean that they have merely different electrical impulses in the brain that are no better or worse than yours? Furthermore, it would seem to follow from this that interpretations and conclusions made in the scientific method would be subject to this same relativism. This, in turn, seems to lead to the conclusion that an atheistic/materialistic/evolutionary world view cannot account for any truth claims in any objective sense, even given the scientific method. Without being able to account for any truth claims in any objective sense, I do not see how the claims of this world view relative to origins is anything more than a shot in the dark.

On the other hand, a world view starting with God as the creator of the universe who has revealed to us who He is through His creation and His Word, the Bible, we can know the truth objectively. In this world view, God is truth and if He says He created the universe and it was done in six days and in such an order, and the whole world was flooded, it must be the truth. If it is not, we have no hope for knowing anything. Furthermore, since we are His creatures created to be able to perceive God in His creation and His Word, we can understand all of this as objective truth and recognize the physical results in the world for what it is.