(April 17, 2013 at 4:40 pm)Tex Wrote: Yes. The guy says Christians believe the bible is inspired because its just so rooted in the brain. I called this "presuppositions" and it is what he actually makes his argument against. He has the standard evangelical definition of faith as "blind trust". This teaching wrong. If you learn, your faith grows. Never should it be encouraged to "to put aside the experience and intellect supposedly given to us by God – and to blindly 'just believe.'" That is garbage from lazy pastors with no education. He then claims those same presuppositions make us "condemn" ourselves, which I'll concede to.
I think his conclusion "the presuppositions are wrong" is wrong. Instead, I think everyone has presuppositions, including atheists. To evaluate independently of presuppositions is a great skill that allows for more truth. This "more truth" over time becomes another presupposition. The knowledge being a presupposition doesn't make it false, it's just the principles by which the brain operates. My diagram would look exactly like his, but with Christianity on the outside and he's walling himself into atheism. By limiting his scope of knowledge, he's making himself less free, not more.
Those are a lot of words which are not quite coherent but you have one common point that is clearly in error. ALL knowledge must be founded on the observation of physical evidence.
One can only validate a presupposition by using physical evidence. If it cannot be validated then it is of no interest. It may or may not be correct but you cannot know.
Another point is your consistent use of one word, Christianity. Which Christianity? 7th Day Adventist, Roman Catholic, Unitarian or some other? I have picked ones which preclude some pious gibberish claiming they are all the same. I mean, does Christianity have a trinity or not?
