(December 12, 2012 at 10:57 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote:(December 12, 2012 at 10:36 pm)Ryft Wrote: The existence of a single non-Christian worldview that is self-attesting, logically coherent, and consistent both with itself and the world in which we live.
Firstly, the supposed absence of such a worldview does not entail the truthfulness of Christianity.
"self-attesting"
If by "self-attesting" you mean has "evidence" to back up its core claims such as resurrection, then I'd argue the evidence for that is shabbier than that for aliens crashing in Roswell.
Even if the resurrection occurred, it is a complete non-sequitor to conclude that Jesus was divine and that Christianity is true. For all we know it could have been a trick by interstellar scientists testing the gullibility of pre-modern humans.
"logically coherent"
It has been shown numerous times that there are contradictions in the bible. The only responses by apologists have been ad hoc rationalizations.
"consistent with itself and the world in which we live"
Something can be false but still be internally consistent. Fantasy stories can be internally consistent but they're not true in reality. As for external consistency, I have never seen devils, nor angels, nor heaven or hell, nor this "spirit" that I'm suppose to have, nor do I see people being brought back to life, etc. Hardly what I would call external consistency.
Now this is an interesting conundrum. First of all, the Christian worldview is not self-attesting, logically coherent or consistent with itself and the world we live in and if the question in the thread was "What criteria would you choose your worldview by" - it'd be rejected entirely on this basis.
But that was not the question asked. The Christians are not asked about the criteria by which they chose Christianity or by which they rejected the other worldviews. The answer here may very well be that since none of the worldviews completely satisfy the requirements, one has just chosen one that he finds most comforting. While there definitely is hypocrisy present, it is not relevant to the question at hand.
On the other hand, the criteria itself is suspect. What qualifies as logical, consistent and true would itself depend on one's chosen worldview. Commonly, we accept the naturalist worldview while determining this, which would make the question loaded on both sides. When Tegh asks "What, if proven to be true", he is implying truth as judged by naturalist worldview. And Ryft would be judging the "consistency with the world we live in" of all other worldviews by his accepted Christian one. I don't see there being any satisfactory conclusion here as long as the premises themselves are in conflict.
