Origin of Articles

[libalchris]

I'm done here. Elunico13, you claim that the only rational basis for science working is the biblical God, while failing to prove that. Fact is science DOES work and it has never needed God to accomplish anything. I can perform experiments, test hypotheses, and draw conclusions just fine without ever assuming God exists.

[elunico13]

My justification for the laws of uniformity and the whole reason science works is because the biblical God consistently keeps this universe in motion. Night and day, the seasons, orbits, life cycles, etc... He is omnipresent so I would also expect uniformity throughout the entire universe and also laws of logic to apply.

The answer, of course, is that presuppositional nonsense isn't about understanding anything. It's about finding a reason to justify a belief that you already held before you even got started. Like most other canned apologetic philoso-babble, you start with the conclusions of your faith and try to find a way to work back to it.

The point you keep missing in your quest to invent evidence where none exists is that logical rules and scientific laws are not "things" nor are they mysterious forces that require the existence of a divine hand to maintain them. There is no magical power that prevents you from contradicting yourself nor is there some angel that stops you from creating or destroying energy or matter. They are nothing more than observations of reality and our way of measuring them. They no more shape our reality than a ruler creates distance.

Your demands that we justify why we use logic or science can be paraphrased into "I demand you figure out a reason why we figure things out without using the process to figure things out."

Why do we need to provide you an answer at all? In the first place, you've asked an absurd question, that we figure out why we figure things out without using a process to figure things out. In the second place, not all preferences require any justification.

If I were to tell you "I like strawberry ice cream" and you ask me "why" and I tell you "I like the sensory inputs it leaves on my tongue" (I like the results it produces), this is a perfectly valid reason as far as personal tastes go. If you tell me "Well, I don't like strawberry ice cream" I will tell you, "Well, don't order it then."

What you haven't realized is that everyone has a worldview through which they interpret evidence. Not too many analyze their own personal worldview or even think they have one. The origins debate is a philosophical one. That's how your lack of justification for your beliefs are being exposed.
In order to have knowledge then you must have justifications for the preconditions of intelligibility. If not then your beliefs are as arbitrary as a child believing Santa is coming down the chimney on Christmas Eve. The child acts upon their beliefs by putting milk and cookies out but has no RATIONAL reason to believe so.

The evolutionist can't give RATIONAL justification for the law of uniformity, laws of logic, morality, etc... It is then arbitrary like Santa Clause.

As far as your strawberry ice cream analogy. If science and logic worked like people's taste buds then I guess science and logic wouldn't exist. It would all be personal preference and that would destroy science and logic.

---

I'm done here. Elunico13, you claim that the only rational basis for science working is the biblical God, while failing to prove that. Fact is science DOES work and it has never needed God to accomplish anything. I can perform experiments, test hypotheses, and draw conclusions just fine without ever assuming God exists.

All with the assumption that your senses are giving you valid information and assuming the past will be like the future.

Looks pretty arbitrary without justification.

[Tobie]

The answer, of course, is that presuppositional nonsense isn't about understanding anything. It's about finding a reason to justify a belief that you already held before you even got started. Like most other canned apologetic philoso-babble, you start with the conclusions of your faith and try to find a way to work back to it.

The point you keep missing in your quest to invent evidence where none exists is that logical rules and scientific laws are not "things" nor are they mysterious forces that require the existence of a divine hand to maintain them. There is no magical power that prevents you from contradicting yourself nor is there some angel that stops you from creating or destroying energy or matter. They are nothing more than observations of reality and our way of measuring them. They no more shape our reality than a ruler creates distance.

Your demands that we justify why we use logic or science can be paraphrased into "I demand you figure out a reason why we figure things out without using the process to figure things out."

Why do we need to provide you an answer at all? In the first place, you've asked an absurd question, that we figure out why we figure things out without using a process to figure things out. In the second place, not all preferences require any justification.

If I were to tell you "I like strawberry ice cream" and you ask me "why" and I tell you "I like the sensory inputs it leaves on my tongue" (I like the results it produces), this is a perfectly valid reason as far as personal tastes go. If you tell me "Well, I don't like strawberry ice cream" I will tell you, "Well, don't order it then."

What you haven't realized is that everyone has a worldview through which they interpret evidence. Not too many analyze their own personal worldview or even think they have one. The origins debate is a philosophical one. That's how your lack of justification for your beliefs are being exposed.
In order to have knowledge then you must have justifications for the preconditions of intelligibility. If not then your beliefs are as arbitrary as a child believing Santa is coming down the chimney on Christmas Eve. The child acts upon their beliefs by putting milk and cookies out but has no RATIONAL reason to believe so.

The evolutionist can't give RATIONAL justification for the law of uniformity, laws of logic, morality, etc... It is then arbitrary like Santa Clause.

As far as your strawberry ice cream analogy. If science and logic worked like people's taste buds then I guess science and logic wouldn't exist. It would all be personal preference and that would destroy science and logic.

There have been a fair few rational attempts to explain morality through evolution. Also, why does it make evolution wrong if an evolutionary scientist cannot tell you exactly why the laws of logic are what they are? They are two completely different topics.

DeistPaladin did not say that his strawberry ice cream analogy was referring to science or logic at all, it was referring to personal preference.

All you've shown is that you have a love of strawman arguments, not that evolution is wrong.

[DeistPaladin]

The evolutionist can't give RATIONAL justification for the law of uniformity, laws of logic, morality, etc... It is then arbitrary like Santa Clause.

This is the "nyth nyth you don't know everything therefore Jesus" part of the "argument".

The entire line of thinking also smacks of Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. "Oh yeah, well, science and reason are articles of faith too!" This is a fallacy because you've done nothing to justify your religious faith. You simply are offering a "you too" distraction.

Additionally, you brushed aside my explanation that "laws of logic" are not external forces or a divine hand. They are observations of how our universe works. If the universe operated differently, the "laws" would be different. It's like a puddle in a hole. You are looking at the borders of the puddle and noting how the hole is perfectly formed to contain the puddle as it is currently shaped, not realizing that the puddle has shaped to fill the hole. I also used an analogy of the ruler and how it measures distance. It doesn't create rules of distance, it simply measures it.

As far as your strawberry ice cream analogy. If science and logic worked like people's taste buds then I guess science and logic wouldn't exist. It would all be personal preference and that would destroy science and logic.

Not surprisingly you missed the point. Let me go a little more slowly...

The presuppositional argument against rational thinking goes something like this:

"Explain why you use science and reason"
"It works. It delivers the goods."
"But that's circular reasoning. You say it works because it works."

And applied to the ice cream analogy:

"Explain why you like strawberry ice cream"
"Because I like the sensations it produces on my taste buds."
"But that's circular reasoning. You say you like it because you like it."

I use the ice cream analogy to try to explain to you why the charge of "circular reasoning" doesn't apply when we are discussing what is proven to work to the satisfaction of the individual consumer. If something is shown to produce the desired results, it's not circular reasoning to use the results as the justification for using the product. That's the desire of the end consumer.

For example, I like living in a society that can cure diseases and double my life expectancy. I can't justify logically why living longer and having a better quality of life is desirable. It just is my preference as a consumer.

Two proverbial products sit on the shelf in the "worldview" store:
1. Science and Reason
2. Religion and Magical Thinking

Which one will I buy? The first produces my desired results. The second does not.

So as you demand that I justify my use of product #1 above, I will tell you it produces the results. If that's "circular reasoning" to you, I'll tell you to go buy product #2 and leave me alone.

[elunico13]

The evolutionist can't give RATIONAL justification for the law of uniformity, laws of logic, morality, etc... It is then arbitrary like Santa Clause.

This is the "nyth nyth you don't know everything therefore Jesus" part of the "argument".

The entire line of thinking also smacks of Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. "Oh yeah, well, science and reason are articles of faith too!" This is a fallacy because you've done nothing to justify your religious faith. You simply are offering a "you too" distraction.

Additionally, you brushed aside my explanation that "laws of logic" are not external forces or a divine hand. They are observations of how our universe works. If the universe operated differently, the "laws" would be different. It's like a puddle in a hole. You are looking at the borders of the puddle and noting how the hole is perfectly formed to contain the puddle as it is currently shaped, not realizing that the puddle has shaped to fill the hole. I also used an analogy of the ruler and how it measures distance. It doesn't create rules of distance, it simply measures it.

As far as your strawberry ice cream analogy. If science and logic worked like people's taste buds then I guess science and logic wouldn't exist. It would all be personal preference and that would destroy science and logic.

Not surprisingly you missed the point. Let me go a little more slowly...

The presuppositional argument against rational thinking goes something like this:

"Explain why you use science and reason"
"It works. It delivers the goods."
"But that's circular reasoning. You say it works because it works."

And applied to the ice cream analogy:

"Explain why you like strawberry ice cream"
"Because I like the sensations it produces on my taste buds."
"But that's circular reasoning. You say you like it because you like it."

I use the ice cream analogy to try to explain to you why the charge of "circular reasoning" doesn't apply when we are discussing what is proven to work to the satisfaction of the individual consumer. If something is shown to produce the desired results, it's not circular reasoning to use the results as the justification for using the product. That's the desire of the end consumer.

For example, I like living in a society that can cure diseases and double my life expectancy. I can't justify logically why living longer and having a better quality of life is desirable. It just is my preference as a consumer.

Two proverbial products sit on the shelf in the "worldview" store:
1. Science and Reason
2. Religion and Magical Thinking

Which one will I buy? The first produces my desired results. The second does not.

So as you demand that I justify my use of product #1 above, I will tell you it produces the results. If that's "circular reasoning" to you, I'll tell you to go buy product #2 and leave me alone.

What is this an infomercial LOL?

I keep getting the "it works, it works" answer.

It becomes vicious circular reasoning when you use your senses to validate your senses, your reason to validate your reason.

Viciously circular reasoning - Occurs when one attempts to infer a conclusion that is based upon a premise that ultimately contains the conclusion itself.

BTW - I've got a craving for some strawberry ice cream.

[Faith No More]

The fail is strong with this one.

Science produces results; religion produces platitudes. The scientific method has been proven over and over to produce truthful results, so whether or not there is a reason for the uniformity does not invalidate the fact that we can detect uninformity.

I think a better analogy, to use the strawberry ice cream again, would be if you ask a child why they are eating the ice cream. They respond that it tastes good and you respond with the question of why it tastes good. Having no working knowledge of the brain and its senses, they respond that they don't know, but every time they taste strawberry ice cream, it tastes good. Therefore, they have inferred that every time they eat ice cream it will taste good. What you are proposing is the child should stop eating the ice cream until they can prove why it tates good, and that since they can't prove why, the ice cream tastes good because god exists.

Science produces results; religion produces platitudes.

[DeistPaladin]

I just don't know how we can go any slower for this guy.

[elunico13]

There have been a fair few rational attempts to explain morality through evolution. Also, why does it make evolution wrong if an evolutionary scientist cannot tell you exactly why the laws of logic are what they are? They are two completely different topics.

If your going to use logic to explain anything than you have to have justification for you belief in things being logical. We should expect arbitrariness from a small child, but not from someone defending a faith in evolution.

If we don't need justification for our beliefs then anyone can assert arbitrarily something completely contradictory, but that would get us nowhere.

Did I answer your question???

[Tobie]

There have been a fair few rational attempts to explain morality through evolution. Also, why does it make evolution wrong if an evolutionary scientist cannot tell you exactly why the laws of logic are what they are? They are two completely different topics.

If your going to use logic to explain anything than you have to have justification for you belief in things being logical. We should expect arbitrariness from a small child, but not from someone defending a faith in evolution.

If we don't need justification for our beliefs then anyone can assert arbitrarily something completely contradictory, but that would get us nowhere.

Did I answer your question???

Same thing applies to god, you moron.

[The Grand Nudger]

All with the assumption that your senses are giving you valid information and assuming the past will be like the future.

Looks pretty arbitrary without justification.

Who assumes that their sense are giving them accurate information? No one who has any idea how fucking bastardly our senses are (ergo scientific method).

Who assumes that the past will be like the future? WTF are you even trying to say with this jumble of words?

Arbitrary.....? ^