Biblical circularity.

[BloodyHeretic]

Well scripture says that Creation itself so attests to God’s existence that nobody has an excuse to not believe in a Creator. So even if a person has never heard the Gospel, they are still expected to believe in the Creator God. So when you say that the person who has not read the Bible is neutral if they do not believe in a Creator you are saying that scripture is wrong which of course makes your position not neutral. So if the person says, “I am neutral on this matter, I think the Bible is wrong when it says people cannot be neutral.” Is that person actually being neutral? I would say that they are not because they are taking a position against a truth claim scripture makes. We can certainly have a constructive conversation, and I feel we have done so up to this point. I am just saying that there really is no middle ground to meet on this issue. This does not mean we cannot discuss the issue though right?

Again, this is a 'bible says' argument. Creation (I prefer nature) is indeed wonderful. That this demands we must believe in a Creator, is a non sequitur. You can only accept this as logic, if you presuppose the bible to be inerrant, which I know you do, but then that's what I'm arguing is the problem. Two thousand years ago, when there was little known of science, this holds a lot more weight. How to explain lightning? Since not too much was known about static electrical build up in clouds, it's far easier to see how somebody would say this attests to a god. Which is what they did.

To the second part of the argument. You must presuppose the bible is inerrant again for this to hold any water. The notion that somebody can't be neutral towards an idea is preposterous, apply it to anything else and you'll see that. The bible says you're either for or against it? Well that's a nice way of promoting tribal insider and outsider feelings. Another relic from it's primitive past. It suits christinaity's purposes to say this, in the same way it suits it to say nature attests to god. If you dare to have a difference of opinion, you'll be damned. That's evidence of it's man-made origins. An interesting philosophical trip for you Statler, suppose the bible were not god's word, and was man made. What would it need to say, what would christianity need to do to become what it has? I found that fun to think about

We can of course discuss this, but to make progress, there must be some leverage. If you're going to resort to 'this is the case because scripture says so' argument, we can't go anywhere, because I don't accept your premise that scripture is inerrant. I'm asking, apart from presupposing it is, is there any other reason to suppose the bible inerrant? All I'm getting back is 'the bible say x, y and z'. That's not going to go anywhere. If you want to admit that you believe scripture is inerrant because you believe it when it says so, that's fine, we can end it here. If you want to suggest some other argument that isn't circular, please do.

I think your reasoning here violates the Principle of Sufficient Reason. You are saying that we have to accept our senses are reliable in order to obtain knowledge, I completely agree, but you do not give a reason as to why our senses would be reliable given your worldview and presuppositions. The Christian worldview can certainly account for the reason why someone’s senses are generally reliable; I am not so sure an atheistic worldview could. Please explain if you disagree though.

I do disagree. Natural selection is a sufficient reason to suppose our senses are reliable. If they weren't a somewhat accurate representation of reality, we wouldn't have survived as a species. Survival of the fittest dictates that we wouldn't be here arguing about it, if we weren't in some way 'fit'. I hope that's reason enough, apologies for not presenting it earlier.