J P Moreland : Skepticism and Epistemology 5 of 8 Apologetics

[cognitivemagic]

The "double helix" model of DNA was based upon a dream (I forget if it was by Watson or Crick) of intertwining snakes.....definitely an analogy taken from macro-observable objects.

In fact, all models of sub-atomic entities, of which we can't directly observe (i.e. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle), are conceptualized by analogies to things that we can observe (i.e. billiard trajectory-model of atoms).

[nearenough3]

N: He's just drawing analogies with personal things he knows, trivial things, with theistic claims he wishes to prove correct. Analogies don't prove anything.

Another point: the human brain weighs only 1300 grams. The universe weighs too many grams times that to think that the brain can figure it all out, no matter how many synapses are there. Sure, we have limited local knowledge, but the big picture will forever elude us. Just die and try to figure it out later. Ha!

[cognitivemagic]

The statement "analogies don't prove anything" is false.

All claims of natural science based on experience, are founded on analogies...that is to say, phenomena occurring in the "present" are similar, or likened to, phenomena of the "past".

But even on a conceptual level, science posits unobservable entities (i.e. quanta, neutrinos, gravitation, space-time, atoms, etc.) that can only be explained, and argued for, in terms of "analogies" taken from macro observable entities.

[nearenough3]

N: Phenomena aren't analogies. They are observations. A religious analogy attempts to use a comparison between an undemonstrated phenomenon "God" and a known thing "creator" or "Father." The items you listed are observable: neutrinos have a mass; gravity exists.

[cognitivemagic]

NO....I wasn't arguing that "phenomena" are analogical. This is a straw man.

I was arguing that "inductive" reasoning is analogical. Try reading my post before you bother responding.

You're only making yourself look stupid here.

[cognitivemagic]

Science argues that "past experience" is similar to "future experience".....inductive reasoning, upon which science is based, is entirely analogical reasoning.

You're a modern Sophist that hasn't earned any degree in philosophy or science.

Plato called people like you "philodoxers":

pseudo-intellectual ignoramus'

Your post is very inspiring. If the world was populated entirely by people like you, then perhaps suicide would be a viable option.

[UbiquitousChe]

Is it possible to get hold of a shot of that chart? It would be nice to see.

[grandconjunct]

I was not at this class and I did not see the chart however , I would be willing to bet the chart is older than the section on religion, epistemology and skepticsm in J P Morelands and William Crags book PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR A CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW (2003) pgs 74-154 deal with skepticism Epistemology and relgion, I found a 34 page outline of Morelands Metaphyscis class from talbot in 1994 just click the link i just posted in the grey box to the right of this video.

[grandconjunct]

If your a brain in a vat then your words you typed have no correspondence to anything in a real world, But at least you see that a non designed brain cannot be trusted! you get some big credit for that.

[Lemminkainnen]

The human brain should not be trusted. It is a marvel of nature, but it is still a flawed cobbled together organ of evolutionary origin. Thus it employs all manner of shortcuts and presupositons about the world in which it evolved.

[CAndiron]

JP Moreland did NOT have coffee for breakfast that morning, because I am a brain in a vat and JP Moreland, youtube, and this key board do not exist! Keanu Reeves and David Hume demonstrated this to me by proving that such a state of affairs is a logical necessity in this type of universe.