The pre-failure of apologetic arguments

[lucent]

Perhaps I wasn't clear in what my point was. Let me simplify it for you:

I understood your point, and it is fallacious. Which you apparently realized, because you've abandoned one of your original premises of dismissing philosophical arguments based on the observation that "universe is not under any obligation to conform to our concepts of what makes sense". You abandoned it because you realized it contradicts the other part of your argument, which is that philosophical argumentation is inferior to empirical testing and research. So now you continue with your remaining premise and offer probabilities instead of certainties, because you cannot escape that your argument rests on an unprovable assumption.

In measuring the proof of a claim:
Repeatable tests + peer review > conjecture

Depends on what you're trying to prove. And what is the guarantee that a test will always give the same answer? What is a peer review except 2 or more limited beings agreeing with eachother?

Hard evidence = repeatable tests that yield the same data.
Abstract philosophy = broad and subjective issues that philosophers have wrestled with for thousands of years (meaning and purpose of life, what morality is, why do we use reason, etc.).

Your definition of "abstract philosophy" is meaningless. You can fit anything into that definition, which is apparently your goal. The Kalam Cosmological argument, since you brought it up, is hardly abstract. Again, there is no guarantee here, but you just offer a probability based on an inappropiate definition. Sure, hard evidence sounds better than abstract philosophy. Your arguments work great when you get to define the terms.

ECREE: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

God provides extraordinary evidence, which He did by raising His Son from the dead. We can test this claim as I outline below.

In measuring how extraordinary a claim is:
Basic assumptions (reality is real, consistency of the universe, etc). < Fantastic assumptions of faith that run contrary to all observed data.

I fixed your assumptions for you:

Assumption: Science is the best way to determine truth
Degree of claim: Extraordinary
Proportional proof required: A scientific experiment proving that this is true

Assumption: Jesus Christ rose from the dead proving He is God
Degree of claim: Extraordinary
Proportional proof required: Special revelation of His existence

The primary assumption is that there is a God, which you agree with, and further that God has revealed Himself through His Son Jesus Christ. It is a trivial thing for God to do miracles; the primary question is whether Jesus Christ rose from the dead. It's always interesting to see how you try to argue like an atheist when you seem to forget your blind faith in a Deist God.

On the question of whether Jesus rose from the dead, science has nothing to say. There is no way for it to test this conclusion, because it is not repeatable. Is it invalid because it is not repeatable? Of course not. History is filled with unique events which are not repeatable. The only way we can know if it is true is to test the claims made by the Christian religion. Those claims being, if we place our trust in Jesus Christ and ask for forgiveness of sins, we will become born again and receive the Holy Spirit. Receiving the Holy Spirit is sufficient proof, but we also have this:

John 14:21

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

When we follow Jesus and obey His commands, He will reveal Himself.

So, the central claim of the bible is provable. If Jesus is alive, He will hear our prayers, we will receive the Holy Spirit, and if we follow His commands, He will reveal Himself to us.

Your assumption, that science is the best way to determine truth is unprovable. There is no scientific experiment to prove that this is true, and no way to guarantee it will be true even five minutes from now.

You cannot account for the Uniformity in nature either. The question of which is the superior worldview rests also on what better accounts for what we see in reality. A Christian worldview can account for Uniformity in nature, an atheistic/deistic one cannot. Since we cannot test your central claim, your supposition is no more probable than Jesus rising from the dead. Even less probable because we can test whether Jesus is alive but we can't test for your claim of the ultimate authority of science.

Not this merry go round again. See my exchange with Statler for my refutation of this drivel.

If your quote of Statler in your signature is any indication of your performance in that debate, I would like you to rehash it. I see why you seem to think it is amusing, but his statement is not actually circular, and neither is his statement false, because circular arguments can be logically valid. So if anything it makes you stupid and not him. And certainly you must believe that circular arguments are logically valid because that's all you really have at the moment.