RE: Is Knowledge of God's Existence Properly Basic?
September 17, 2013 at 4:25 pm
(This post was last modified: September 17, 2013 at 4:43 pm by Simon Moon.)
(September 17, 2013 at 12:35 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: I have to say that this is perhaps the second most annoying apologist response to unbelievers, that they know Christianity is true regardless of the evidence. Does it make any sense to say that one's knowledge of the existence of God is properly basic?
Proponents of this tend to claim that it is on the basis of the "witness of the Holy Spirit" that they know Christianity is true. And that this gives them a self-authenticating way of knowing Christianity is true, even if in some "historically-contingent" circumstances the evidence is not in its favor (William Lane Craig).
One of the most annoying proponents of this crappy argument that I've heard recently is this guy named Sye Ten Bruggencate' on YT.
Seriously, if you are into a bit of masochism, watch a few of his vids.
He got in a debate with Truthsurge, an ex evangelical Christian (now atheist) that was truly astonishing.
Sye Ten accused Truthsurge of being delusional when Truthsurge claimed that he did have a personal 'revelation' while he was a Bible believing Christian.
Sye Ten's justification for claiming that Truthsurge's experience was a delusion, but his own is legitimate, is because he's still a Christian.
Just ponder that idiocy for a minute.
While they were both still Christians, their individual claims of 'witness of the holy spirit' would have been pretty much indistinguishable, as they both would have described them.
Yet, because Truthsurge was able to break himself free of his delusion, while Sye Ten is still under his, from Sye Ten's view, he is the one that is not delusional. And Truthsurge was never a 'true Christian' (Sye's words).
Sye went on to say that Truthsurge would not have been able to enter Heaven while under his delusion, because he was not a 'true Christian'.
Even trying to type out Sye Ten's arguments makes my brain hurt.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
