RE: Call me a fideist

I am going to try to answer several emails at once. This is to Joel, Terry,
and Dave. I have just had to fly home from Beijing. My wife is very sick and
I am very tired tonight and will probably go to bed after this email. I
don't want anyone to hold back on the vigor of the debate because of this.

My wife had to get a chest xray to get a visa to live in China. The doctors
say there is a 70% chance she has lung cancer (she doesn't smoke). They are
going to remove part of her lung in a couple of weeks. Anyway, debating will
keep my mind occupied.

Joel wrote:

>>>Glenn,

You're absolutely right that the religious world is much bigger than
North American Christianity but you seem to be failing to fully
recognize that fact. The well-recognized rise of Christianity in
Africa and Asia over the last few decades has little to do with the
sort of apologetic that you and others on this list are trying to
construct. The concerns of your average African or Asian convert are
miles away from what we're discussing on this list. That's not to say
that these discussions aren't important but I'd say you're mistaken to
think the sort of scientific-type of apologetic you've worked on will
have much traction beyond North American or European Chrisitanity. In
my limited observations, most people who convert to Christianity do so
because of personal testimony and a daily living out of one's calling
to follow Christ.<<<<

I actually agree with everything you say here, except that there are a
couple of things that you miss. I didn't say this apologetic was for
Africans. At least I don't recall saying that. I am always a bit surprised
at the things people think I said, which I didn't say. I have spoken about
the 2% of Europeans who attend church and I think it is largely because no
one thinks the Bible is real any more. I am concerned with the general
perception in the western World that the Bible is untrue scientifically and
historically. And what I find on the ASA web are a large group of people
saying exactly that. My atheist boss once told me that he didn't believe
the Bible because it wasn't true. His geology conflicted with what he had
been taught the Bible taught. An apologetic of the type I am interested in
is not for the African but for the likes of my boss. It greatly bothers me
that We Christians in science want to believe that the bible doesn't tell us
anything about reality but then illogically turn around and say it is a true
message from God. But most certainly a message that didn't carry much truth
in it.

Any member of any religion in the world can perform the same mental
gymnastics. Acknowledge that their scriptures teach crap about the world,
but then proclaim proudly that they believe what it teaches. Why is it that
this simple thing doesn't feel or look odd to most people on this board? It
sure seems odd to me, but after several days of debate on this, I am
thinking of committing myself to see if I can get rid of this delusion that
it is wrong to proclaim as true, that which is utterly false. I know I must
be the one who is sick cause I am the minority on this issue.

This is for Terry who wrote:

>
>In my summary of the evidentialist arguement, I did not start with
>"Christianity is true" or "the Bible is true" as you claim. It starts
>with "the Biblical accounts are generally reliable."

Now, see here is where I don't see people affirming that the Bible accounts
are 'generally reliable". I doubt more than a handful here actually think
there was a talking snake, a floating ax head, the drought and rain of
Elijah, Jonah is clearly fairy tale according to what I have learned here.
So, how on earth can you make this claim?(I am not directing this at you
personally Terry but I doubt many would agree that the accounts are
reliable. And if you make this claim of general reliability, then is it fair
for me to do to you what Dave Siemans and others do to me when I say exactly
the same thing? They always try to make it look like I am trying to defend
every fact in the Bible when what I am trying to defend is that general
reliability--e.g. that there is some sort of real history behind the
account. Dave always gets confused and starts wanting to talk about coneys.

Terry Wrote:
>>> This is empirically verifiable--I'm guess that this is what George is
getting at to some degree. I will suggest that given the historical nature
of God's dealings with mankind that history is the primary place where
Christianity is verified or not. If you reject the historical as being
fundamentally untrustworthy, you will not find much ground for Christianity
being true.<<<<

I don't see George saying that. Maybe he communicates badly or maybe I am a
dunce student. I see George taking the approach you outline below.

>>>>Affirming the general reliability of scripture you have to deal with the
person and work of Jesus Christ. His claims are pretty exclusive as I read
it. That encounter isn't just one that North American Christians have.

Once you accept the authority of Christ, you get to the claim that
Christianity and the Bible is true and from then on it's totally logical to
operate from that basis. But please note that my argument doesn't start
there.<<<<

My problem is that one can perfectly mirror this statement for any religion
by simply plugging in the appropriate name. 2 examples:

>>>>Affirming the general reliability of the texts you have to deal with the
person and work of Jesus Christ. His claims are pretty exclusive as I read
it. That encounter isn't just one that North American Christians have.

Once you accept the authority of Ahura Mazda, you get to the claim that
Zoroastrianism and the Sacred Texts are true and from then on it's totally
logical to operate from that basis. But please note that my argument doesn't
start there.<<<<

>>>>Affirming the general reliability of Daozang writings you have to deal
with the person and work of Shang Di. His claims are pretty exclusive as I
read it. That encounter isn't just one that Chinese Daoists have.

Once you accept the authority of Shang Di, you get to the claim that Daoism
and the Daozang is true and from then on it's totally logical to operate
from that basis. But please note that my argument doesn't start there.<<<<

My point is that any ole religion can do the very same as you just did. And
they feel equally justified in doing so.

For some reason, I must be communicating terribly here as usual because this
mirror image in all aspects of religion seem to me to form the basis of a
problem in determining which religion is the real religion. Ask any
adherent to any religion if he has the true religion and he will tell you
his is the true religion. But of course, they can't all be the true
religion or God/Shang Di/Ahura Mazda/Jupiter... is psychotic.

I see only two ways out of this dilemma.

1. Assume your way out of it--the fideist position.
2. find the religion which tells you something real about tangible reality
which would have been hard for them to know. That doesn't mean that one
proves that a particular religion is the real one. It only makes it
plausible and the others religions which tell you falsehoods about reality
are excluded from being candidates for the real religion.

>>>>>That being said, I still have my reservations about the appropriateness
of the creature deciding whether or not the Creator is true or which version
of him is true.<<<<<

Sorry, Terry, This is what everyone is doing whether you admit it or not.

>>> The method of a posteriori confirmation of presuppositions due to their
"success" in the way we (and everyone) actually lives is also a method of
rational confirmation--it's not an irrational or a totally circular
approach. <<<<

The problem with this is that if you listen to the adherents of other
religions they will tell you that they too have miracles, they to talk to
God, I have even had Chinese atheists tell me that they pray to someone, in
their mind. A posteriori confirmation could merely be a posteriori
self-delusion. How do you know it isn't that in all cases? I have used this
before but Ramanujan believed that his bizarre mathematical insights were a
gift from a Hindu god--a perfect case of a posteriori confirmation of his
presuppositions.

>>>>Finally, my comment about design which you quickly jump on. There is
nothing in design arguments that distinguish between any kind of theism.
That's why Christian theists, Islamic theists, Unification church theists
can all join together in advocating ID. Personally, I don't think that ID
folks are being disingenuous when they say that "designed" life on earth
could be some great experiment by ET's. If design in the sense that they're
promoting is detectable it doesn't necessarily have any convincing
apologetic function. ET's are a more logical conclusion to draw for the
atheist (oh, there i am slipping into presuppositional thinking again).<<<<

I don't think the ID group went out of its way to tell the Christian
community from whom most of their funding came from that they were working
with these other faiths. Now, I agree with you that theists can work
together for ID but I would ask then, what good is it to any of them. The
Islamacist says Allah, the Jew, Jehovah; No one says it is ET. There is not
much progress in the problem I am interested in there.

This is for David Siemens, who said:

>>>Glenn.

Your answer confuses me even more. The named individuals without specific
ages do not enter into the computation, which was carefully done by Ussher
and others. There are other temporal data given. So the number of names
given are at best an indication of the minimum period, so there cannot be
less than the time for 10 generations from Noah to Abram. But this gives no
hint as to the total period.<<<<

Well, David, I am sorry that I can't unconfused you.

>>>"Son of man" seems to indicate nothing more than "human being." "Son of
David" applies to David's descendants. "Sons of Belial" has nothing to do
with ancestry. The Hebrew idiom has nothing to do with what you try to
claim, though Simon bar Jonah tells us the name of Peter's parent.<<<

David, the calculation done by Ussher was using the father son dates and a
few judicious guesses to get a nonfloating chronology. I fyou don't
understand that the use of the term, son of, doesn't mean father-son and
thus can't be used as a dating scheme, I can't unconfused you.

>>>In the end, I still don't know if you have a criterion. <<<<

In the end, I really don't care if you know or not. It isn't my
responsibility to teach you how Ussher used the father son names to
calculate a chronology.

>>>Mine is encapsulated in Galileo's principle that the Bible teaches us how
to go to heaven, not how the heavens go, extended slightly. <<<

And then so does the Bhagadvagita, the I Ching, the Book of the Dead, the
Book of Mormon, The Koran etc. I don't see that you have a criterion for
choosing between these options. But then, you probably don't care if I know
it or not either. So we are probably at an impasse here.

>>>I used to try to make the first two chapters of Genesis agree, until I
read them carefully to determine exactly what was claimed. I had to conclude
that they what they claimed did not match. So their message can't be
factual.<<

That kind of jumps to the conclusion with insufficient evidence. Have you
ever thought that maybe there is a solution which you were incapable of
thinking of? Could there be just a wee chance of that being the case? My
solution is that Gen 1 and 2 are not talking about the same event nor the
same time. Thus they can both be factual because they are not conflicting
descriptions of the same event so they shouldn't match. Why would we expect
descriptions of two separate events to match? I wouldn't. I can't figure
out why you would, but according to your rapid fire decision that if they
don't match, they can't be factual, you must have some reason for rejecting
the concept that they are talking about two separate events. Why don't you
share your reasoning with us on this?

Goin to bed after 30+ hours awake. Need some shut eye.
Received on Fri May 27 23:15:10 2005