Answering Presuppositionalism: Basic

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[tr0za]

I don't agree with your 4th point, namely that the failure to explain a phenomenon does not invalidate one's worldview, or render it inconsistent. Arbitrariness in a worldview does, in fact, invalidate it. Although there can be no certainty in regards to the truth-value of scientific models, they are held to be true pragmatically, which is far better than believing in something arbitrarily, which non-christians do.

[bitbutter]

@tr0za Christian mythology fails to explain God's existence or his decision to create the world. So according to what you just said: 'Arbitrariness in a worldview does, in fact, invalidate it', you must reject Christianity.

[bshantonu]

@bitbutter I like your videos. I've never understood what presuppositionalism was about, and I still don't. Maybe I can't understand something that crazy. How could inductive reasoning "presuppose" a uniquely Christian worldview ? Also, the fact that inductive reasoning is on shaky ground isn't anything to worry about. Philosophers have known about this problem since Hume and have proposed various solutions. I don't know enough about science, but isn't the uniformity up for grabs?

[bitbutter]

@bshantonu The presupper incorrectly believes that the problem of induction can be 'solved' by appealing to God as a kind of divine guarantor. Of course this fails; questions about God's nature or his promises aren't immune to the problem of induction (if God promised that inductive inference is generally trustworthy, will his promise still hold in the future?, how can we be confident about this without trusting an inductive inference?). It's silly stuff.

[tbone777]

the funny part of all of this is that man tries to disprove religion with "logic" and "science" when everything we can come up with is created with 1/10 of our brain. pretty lame if you ask me. Man has been trying to get out of serving God for all of eternity, and He keeps punishing us, thank God its almost over.

[bitbutter]

Did you forget that your funny ideas about what the existence of this invisible being, and what he wants from us, are also the result of activity in less than 10% of your brain?

[Entropy56]

Romans 9:19 "...For who resists His will?"

Christians cannot account for free-will because they believe God is omniscient. That alone ought to stop them from demanding the Atheist account for the ultimate basis for logic, morality, and free-will. Logically, the Atheist and Christian live in a deterministic world yet we all act as if we have free-will.

[Entropy56]

Well, I'm not saying we do or don't have free will.  The point is it is hard to define and account for philosophically. Presuppositionalists assert that if you can't account for something then that something can't exist. In their world they can account for God so he must exist. But when I ask them to account for free will they can't and so isn't the conclusion free will therefore doesn't exist? They are trapped by their own logic.

[chiffmonkey]

@tbone777 1/10th of our brain, so did god just forget to give us the other 9/10ths?

[1noen1]

It is a mistake to get sucked into trying to "prove" logic or reason. Rationality is the necessary presupposition to the very possibility of rational discourse. Rationality is not a "posit", it is the framework within which reason can operate.

The same holds for external realism. It is also the necessary presupposition for methodolgogical naturalism. It is not possible to do science or any investigation at all without presupposing an external world.

[bshantonu]

@bshantonu (cont) so presup isn't really new. It's just the same attempt to create certainty and permanence where wisdom and maturity dictates uncertainty and change.

[bshantonu]

@bitbutter Sorry to take up so much time, but I've been thinking about this, and what really motivates pre-sup is misunderstanding of and a fear of uncertainty--a typical, pre-scientific reaction. The fact is that nothing is holding up induction. There is nothing guaranteeing it, nor could there be. Induction and uniformity are just observable features of most of the known universe. They are subject to change and refutation the way that any other feature of the universe is.

[bshantonu]

@bitbutter Well maybe if God were a guarantor of that type, you would say that the promise would hold for the future, b/c that's just how God is. But here's the problem: does induction work in black hole? According p/s it does. But according to modern physics, this question is up for grabs. We don't know if the universe is actually uniform. There may be places in the universe where we would not find uniformity and where we would not know which laws (Einstein's or QM) to apply.

[bshantonu]

@bshantonu (cont) what I mean is, uniformity isn't something that science actually assumes. It's something that scientists observe. There might be situations, for example in black holes, where the equations indicate that uniformity breaks downs so that although you have a large object, you won't be able to use the laws of gravity (because the object is very small). So, with black holes, the uniformity of nature is not only not assumed by science, it might be disproved by science.