Van Tillian/Clarkian Presuppositional Apologetics.

[Statler Waldorf]

Is God's character the way it is because it is good or is God's character good simply because it is God's character? You simply reorganized the question, you're bankrupt. You have no logic, no reason, no evidence, it is faith alone. Nothing wrong with admitting to faith alone Stat. Believe it's actually thought of as a virtue in your circles. As far as rape, what exactly do you think is meant by "keeping the girls who had never known a man for yourselves." It's official, I don't believe you've actually read the bible. I haven't heard anything from you that didn't fall straight from a discovery institute screed. Word for word. I think you just read their hilarious bullshit and said "Yup, sounds good enough for me" and now you're regurgitating here like it hasn't been knocked down everywhere else it's cropped up.

You are such a poser; I have known this ever since you linked Martin’s TANG, which was refuted over a decade ago. The dilemma is dealing with God’s decrees, not His character, so simply moving it to His nature and character is completely inappropriate. God’s character and nature are the ultimate standard of goodness; a person is not required to use another ultimate standard to justify an ultimate standard. However, given your worldview why would it be wrong for God to arbitrarily declare what is good? You believe that people do this, so why chastise God for doing the same? Special pleading.

You are the one asserting that “keeping the women to yourselves” means rape and not marriage like it clearly states in Deuteronomy so the onus is on your to prove this. However, given your worldview why would it be wrong to rape someone? Animals do it, and you believe humans are just animals right?

This is a classic case of "begging the question". You've defined (declared) that your god's nature is wholly good and then used this unfounded assumption to justify your beliefs that the god you've declared to be good is necessary for a standard measurement of good to exist. Actually, this is a double-beg since you also assume that objective standards of morality exist but that's another issue for another thread.

Actually you are engaging in special pleading, you admitted that you cannot justify the laws of logic because they are your ultimate standard for truth, and yet you are asking me to justify God’s wholly good nature even though it is my ultimate standard for good. I provided an answer the dissolved the dilemma, God appeals to something that is neither outside of Himself nor arbitrary, so now you are really just moving the goalposts.

I am still not sure why you keep appealing to logic considering you hold a worldview that cannot account for its existence, but oh well.

With the former, we have a classic case of circular reasoning. You've declared Yahweh's commands are wholly good. The reason you "know" this is because Yahweh is wholly good. And a wholly good god couldn't issue anything other than wholly good commands so since his commands are wholly good, we know that Yahweh is wholly good. The circular logic is dizzying.

Again, special pleading. You admitted you yourself would have to use circular reasoning to justify logic, and yet you chastise others for using circular reasoning? Circular reasoning is not in itself invalid, and it is something that has to be used sooner or later in order to prevent an infinite regression of justification. I just happen to use it at the very top of my tree of reasoning, at my ultimate standards, where a person is supposed to use it. You use it further down the tree, where it becomes a problem. I guess I could take a play from your playbook and say, “Saying God is wholly good is true because it works and gets results.” Now I totally know why you did that, it’s so easy. :-P

So it seems from your line of thinking, no command by your god could ever be evil. Anything can be justified with the rationalization that it's for our own good in ways we can't understand. And if you can't (or won't) judge the morality of the god you serve, how can you be sure you aren't unwittingly serving the devil?

Definitions matter, evil is defined as something contrary to God’s decreed will, so you are absolutely right, by definition none of God’s decrees can be evil just like a married man by definition cannot be a bachelor.

So he doesn't set his children on fire for not loving him but justly sets them on fire for not loving him. Glad we cleared that up.

Comprehension matters, I clearly said, God never set his children on fire for not loving Him, but will punish His creatures with fire for rebelling against Him. So your analogy about parents and their children was a false analogy because none of God’s children go to hell.

Agreed. Yahweh is a bloodthirsty sadistic tantrum throwing tyrant. Modern liberal Christianity has more to do with modernity and idealism than scripture.

Where do you get your standard of morality to call God that? You are right, liberals root their sense of truth in fallible men rather than infallible scripture; this makes a lot of sense huh?

I didn't say that. I said the OT did. I said there are modern examples of religious societies that think so. Religion has a way of condoning inhuman behavior. Do not presume that when I point out what the OT condones that I believe it's OK (often quite to the contrary).

You are behaving in a way that is inconsistent with your worldview which is never a good sign. You clearly stated that morals are determined by societies, so you would have to believe (according to your very own definition of morality) that if one society believed rape was morally acceptable and raped the women of another society this would be am acceptable action. Your worldview can only give you moral conventions but you steal from my worldview and appeal to universal moral laws.

Numbers 31:14-18 offers an account of Moses' admonishments to slay all the males and non-virgin females and take the virgin females as sex slaves.

Deuteronomy 20:13-16 Outlines the rules for war in which you can take a cities virgin women as sex slaves (after mercilessly killing all the males of the captured city).

Judges 12 describes the capture of virgin girls from Jabesh-Gilead for the purpose of forced marriage and sex slavery. The rest are killed. When there aren't enough virgins to go around, women from Shiloh are captured for the same purpose.

Deuteronomy 21:11-14 offers the instructions for how to properly rape your sex slaves. Certain "niceties" apply. You must give her six months to mourn her family that you slaughtered, following Yahweh's rules for war. Then you can rape her. If you don't enjoy raping her, you can't sell her. You must let her go.

Where in Numbers does it say sex slaves? Where in Deuteronomy does it say sex slaves? I see wives, and unless you believe the purpose of a wife is to serve as a sex slave I see no logical reason to believe the Bible is condoning rape here. Whew, I was worried maybe you’d actually could find a verse that said, “Rape is good, mmmk?” Rather than this worn out canard you present here.

Only if the victim was married or betrothed to another man (she was his property). If the victim was an unbetrothed virgin, the attacker would be forced to pay a fine to the father (she was his property until being married off) and then he would marry her. Boy, I bet that made her feel better (sarcasm).

Another worn out canard, consensual fornication was outlawed under Jewish law just like un-consensual fornication. You are really reaching here. Even if rape was condoned by the Hebrews you have already admitted that you could not say they had done anything wrong because morality is determined by societies, so I am not sure why you are even bothering.

“But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. 26"But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. 27"When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her," (Deut. 22:25-28).

Uh oh, punishing rapists with death? Looks like the Bible has even a more strict view on the issue than our “civilized” countries do today.

I found it interesting that later in the passage when talking of the unmarried and un-betrothed girl most translations do not use the word “rape”, however you used one of the few translations that does…hmmm……It’s pretty clear when you honestly exegete the passage the second example is talking about consensual sex between the unmarried man and woman.

Your examples are so silly as to qualify as examples of "appeal to ridicule".

I cannot help if your reasoning appears ridiculous when drawn out to its logical conclusion. If these examples are really that silly, then they should be easy to refute…I noticed you didn’t even try to though….hmm. Just take the De Sade example, why would it be wrong for him to torture women if he himself would have enjoyed this?

Rational animals, not just animals. We form communities and so morality, empathy and codes of conduct are what has enabled us to survive.

You seem to be appealing to the good of the whole over the good of the individual, where do you get the authority to make such a claim?

I still fail to grasp why you feel the Bible has a copyright on morality.

It doesn’t, only the transcendental kind, which you keep appealing to. If morality is really just some evolutionary adaptation that allows us to coexist in societies (something you keep asserting but not proving) then why would you make a charge against God for violating it? He is not an animal that arose through Darwinian means who needs to live in a society. You are acting inconsistent with your worldview, which leads me to believe your worldview needs revision.

What part of preference do you not understand? You are the one who has used the word "should", not me. If you wish to eschew science and rational thinking, I'm sure the Amish could use another member of their community.

You keep using this argument, as if using it more and more somehow makes it less and less of a red herring. Just because you cannot provide a sufficient reason for invariable abstract universal entities such as the laws of logic does not mean I do not use them, I can justify their use in my worldview.

In what way do you feel they are demonstrated to work?

Well say a society believed that snakes were evil and magical creatures which should be avoided, this in turn would prevent the people in this society from ever being bitten by a venomous snake. So this superstition works, given your logic that the truth of things are justified by achieving results you have to also believe this superstition is justified. Just because something gets results does not mean it is true, so you cannot use that line of fallacious reasoning to account for the laws of logic.

Again, I fail to understand why you feel I need to justify my use of logic.

If you do not justify it then you are violating the principle of sufficient reason and thus behaving irrationally. If you wish to remain irrational that is up to you, but I prefer rationality myself.

Christianity has never made science possible. The Age of Enlightenment and the subsequent modern age could only happen because Christianity's power was sufficiently weakened. From heliocentrism to evolution, progress was made not because of but in spite of Christianity.

Well the founders of modern science, Bacon, Newton, Galileo, and Kepler all disagree with you. Their reformed views on nature and scripture directly fueled their science because it gave them a foundation for the principle of induction. You cannot justify the principle of induction given your worldview and therefore cannot even justify the use of science. So on the contrary atheists conduct science in spite of their worldviews, not because of them.

Prove that our conscience must come from the Christian god. I've seen only assertions so far.

Already did, no other worldview can account for the preconditions of knowledge as you have demonstrated several times already, so unless you want to admit we can’t know anything, then you are only left with the Christian God. It’s proof by negation.

Nope. As the movie demonstrated, he saw and spoke with people who weren't there. It was confusing for him to know true sensory input from false. However, he was able to deduce inconsistencies in some sensory input (the girl never got older) and had a majority of other sensory inputs telling him which ones were wrong (real people in his life).

So he is using sensory input, what he hears other real people tell him and the fact he does not see the girl age, to verify or falsify his other sensory input. That’s circularity, there is nothing wrong with it, but it is circularity.

Solipsism is technically true and stupid to live by. I can guess that you don't live by it. When you are on the 10th floor of a building, you most likely choose to navigate the stair way or use the elevator rather than walk out the window wondering if all this reality was really real. If you are trying to argue using solipsism, you are a hypocrite and a sophist.

Another red herring, I am not arguing for solipsism, scripture provides me with a sufficient reason as to why I should trust my senses. Unfortunately for you, your worldview cannot provide you with any sufficient reason as to why you should trust yours. You would have great difficulty refuting a solipsist, I would not.

Frankly, I've never met a Christian who didn't see their god as a reflection of themselves and their own desires and prejudices. "God" always seems to want whatever they want and hate whatever they hate. Therefore, I strongly suspect that your "justification" is nothing more than your imagination giving you permission to do as you will.

Anecdotal Fallacy.

I'm lost on the point of why I need to offer any further justification than "I'm going with what's proven to work" but I'm going to let that argument rest until someone can explain why this reason is insufficient.

That’s because that is a statement you have yet to even prove to be true. How do you prove a law of logic ‘works’? I am still waiting for this one.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I love the Princess Bride, and I was going to post that same video when you kept using the word contradict incorrectly, that’s funny. I assure you it means what I think it means. You keep trying to argue against positions I have never taken (that I want an irrational society) and inferring I have made claims I did not make. If you knew what it meant you would stop doing it, I hope.

A "red herring" is an irrelevant topic introduced as to divert attention from the topic being discussed. However, we are discussing your attempts to accuse atheists of "borrowing" from Christianity when it is you who are borrowing in order to attack.

So you do know what it means! You also do know what we are discussing! Then why do you keep saying that if I want to live in an irrational society I certainly can since that is obviously not what I am arguing? Are you intentionally being dishonest or just intentionally using the red herring so you don’t have to actually address my points?

Ah, so you are accusing me of using a "strawman", not a red herring. It's not true but you should get your terms straight when you use them. If you're going to bandy around terms for logical fallacies, you lose credibility if you don't use the terms properly.

The straw man is a subclass of the red herring fallacy there Bub, at least you recognize you are using fallacious logic though.

The Straw Man is a type of Red Herring because the arguer is attempting to refute his opponent's position, and in the context is required to do so, but instead attacks a position—the "straw man"—not held by his opponent.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html

I have yet to see chapter and verse to justify how you fell that obligation to be rational. It's not a strawman to point out that faith is not a call to reason but a rejection of reason. Again, it is belief not only without reason but against all reason, on the basis of someone or some book's say so.

Equivocation, you are defining faith differently than scripture does but then using your definition of faith to argue against scripture’s commandment for believers to have faith. Bad bad boy. Not sure why you would redefine faith that way, we already have a word that means that very thing, credulity.

Again, you are using an argument for the existence of any god to justify your specific god. Being how I am an agnostic atheist, I make no claims to the existence of a deistic god, so my 'atheistic worldview,' as you call it, needs to justify nothing as far as the existence of knowledge. Since I make no claims to a specific god, I don't have to justify the existence of anything to account for the existence or nonexistence of a deity. So pointing out that my worldview can't account for something amounts to nothing, because I make no claims that need to account for anything.

Very cool, Mike Patton is a very influential figure in world of metal; he is the biggest influence on the vocalist of my favorite band actually.

Actually it is not a prove for just any god, the God who created the world the world we live and can be intelligible would necessarily have to possess the same characteristics as Yahweh, and Yahweh by a different name would still be the God of the Bible.

When you assume the existence of things you cannot account for in your worldview you violate the principle of sufficient reason which renders your actions irrational. So if you want to behave rationally you have to account for the existence of the preconditions of knowledge given the parameters of your naturalistic worldview. The fact that we are engaging in this discussion leads me to believe that you do indeed wish to behave rationally, so you should give an account for the preconditions in order to do so my friend.

As far as the Christian god is concerned, I do not try to explain the existence of knowledge or uniformity in nature without him, so again, I don't have to account for anything to prove that something can exist without him. I only need to account for my reasons for denying he could exist, which is his contradictory and irrational nature. A personal god that punishes people for their thoughts is wholly inconsistent with the nature of an enlightened being.

Well as I pointed out above, in order to preserve your rationality you are obligated to account for those things. You should at the very least account for how logic and morality can even exist in a world not created and governed by God before you try and use them to argue against God’s existence.

I could come up with an infinite different specific gods that could all account for what you claim is only possible with the Christian god.

I think you would actually find this far more difficult than you initially thought.

Hope you have a good day!