Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

BTW, here's the Amazon link for the Religious Epistemology text, and
Plantinga's essay "Is Belief in God Properly Basic" is in Section III,
"Reformed Epistemology":
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019507324X/sr=8-1/qid=1149305530/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2227395-5067053?%5Fencoding=UTF8

On 6/2/06, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>
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> David, I have come to realize that you do not know what the word
epistemology means. You mean apologetics.
>
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> No, I mean epistemology. Epistemology and apologetics, of course, go hand
in hand. Your apologetic stance will be one thing or another depending on
your epistemological stance. Presuppositionalism is a way of doing
apologetics that is tied to an epistemological stance. Did you get the
Religious Epistemology text published by Oxford that I mentioned, in which
Plantinga discusses presuppositional epistemology? It really is a good read.

>
> Anyway, I've sort of beat this to death now.
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> On 6/2/06, glennmorton@entouch.net <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
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> > This is for David Opderbeck, Michael Roberts, Don Winterstein
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> > >>>>On Wed May 31 21:14 , "David Opderbeck" sent:
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> > I see several problems with the Great Green Slug hypo.
> >
> >
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> > First, the hypo seems to bear no relationship to any real-world
situation. I doubt it's possible to claim that any religion has "no support
whatsoever scientifically or observationally." Certainly all the major
world religions say some things about life and human nature that in some
ways ring true. And Christianity in particular in many ways is grounded in
good history (at least from the time of the later history of Israel on) and
resonates with human experience. The more realistic hypo would pose that
some aspects of the student's inherited religion lack scientific or
observational support. That in itself doesn't seem terribly problematic,
since no broad area of theory -- religious, philosophical, scientific, or
otherwise -- is 100% consonant with every observation or every other
plausible scientific theory. Unless (and even if) you want to resort to
Descartes' solipsism, there will always be ambiguities and inconsistencies
to deal with, no matter what you believe. <<<<<
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> > GRM: Actually it does represent a real life situation. I didn't say
that the GGS religion didn't teach anything true. I have over the months of
asking this noted that the GGS creation story is wrong, just as the
face-value-yec-reading of the Genesis account is wrong and in the same way
that the Old-earther Mesopotamian reading of Genesis 6-9 is wrong. It is
those stories which are proclaimed to be theologically true when they have
been found lacking in physical verification of the stories. (I will post
something on Reformed presuppositional apologetics, which you seem to like.
> >
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> > >>>>Second, the hypo provides no context about the Slug religion. We
don't know precisely what aspects of the religion are in conflict with the
observational and scientific data the student is learning at Harvard or how
important those aspects of the religion are to the coherence of Slug
theology as a whole. For example, we don't know precisely why the notion
that the Slug created the universe conflicts with any scientific or
observational data -- it may be that the Slug is an eternal spiritual being
who established the laws that guided evolution, removing any apparent
conflict. <<<
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> >
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> > You don't need a context about the slug religion (fill in any religion
you want to—why this is so difficult for some people I don't know—it is easy
to find examples. Take the Mormons and their archaeological claims which
are totally false if you want to). Can a mormon do what we do and proclaim
the Book of Mormon theologically true even if it is historically false?
> >
> >
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> > >>>Finally, the hypo begs critical questions about epistemology. What
does it mean for a religious claim to lack, or have, "support"
"scientifically" or "observationally?" <<<
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> > David, I have come to realize that you do not know what the word
epistemology means. You mean apologetics. In an earlier post you said you
believed in Reformed Presuppositional Epistemology. I said then that there
was no such thing. Jack Haas sent me a reformed presupp article and I will
post on that rather amusing view of the world in a day or so. But I want
you to know that epistemology is the philosophical area of study of how we
know what we know. This is not apologetics, which is why our views are
defendable.
> >
> >
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> > So, David, here is a fully contextualized question. Can a mormon, who
grows up and finds out that his religion's statements about North American
Prehistory is false, proclaim the Book of Mormon true theologically and
claim that it teaches the true theology?
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> > Michael Roberts:
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> > >>> Well, a great Green Slug is a nonsense view and no amount of
accommodation/concordism or even reckoning it to be a myth of great worth
would mitigate its nonsense.<<<<
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> > So, believing in a Mesopotamian flood for which there is zero geological
evidence of a widespread flood isn't equal nonsense?
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> > >>>There is simply no picture of what God is like in Genesis or the rest
of the bible so there is no problem here. <<<
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> > OK, but you have also avoided answering the question when applied to the
Mormons. Is it OK for a Mormon, when he finds out how false the accounts of
North American archaeology are, to proclaim his book theologically true
while at the same time it is historically false? This is a real life
example, Michael, and you have avoided so far answering this one. You can
play yec and hide your head in the sand from questions like this but that
doesn't mean the question is nonsense.
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> > >>>The accommodation is over the perception of the univesre and the ANE
cosmology was a reasonable one for its day.
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> > I will try your GGS on some Harvard students this august - assuming they
have IQs in double figures!!
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> > From a fellow accommodationalist<<<
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> > You say you are a fellow accomodationalist, but you are delusional.
Since I don't believe that the ANE cosomology was a reasonable thing for a
truthful god to allow into his supposed communication to man at any time in
history, I am NOT a accommodationalist. I think if God communicated to
mankind such a view of cosmology, then God is a liar. And therein lies the
conundrum I am faced with. I won't say it is theologically true as you are
want to do.
> >
> >
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> > In short, I have become amazed, and extremely disappointed in the way
you handle yourself on this issue and with these questions. You are not
forthright, you are evasive as a YEC, you are saying things that are not
true (like asserting that I am an accommodationalist). You are quite
disappointing in this to me, Michael.
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> > Don Winterstein wrote:
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> > >>>>Now that my memory is getting into gear, let me modify my second
paragraph (below): In previous investigations I did indeed find one
instance where "word of the LORD (YHWH)" referred to contents of
scriptures. This was in the Chronicles account of King Josiah's discovery
of the Book of the Law (2 Chron. 34). Josiah says with reference to the
contents of that book, "...Our fathers have not kept the word of the
LORD...." (The parallel account in 2 Kings 22 quotes him as saying, "...Our
fathers have not obeyed the words of this book....") <<<<
> >
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> > Maybe I missed your response to me when I noted that the prophets often
say, 'The word of the Lord came to [name of prophet], Here is an example.
Whose words are in quotes?
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> > Genesis 15:4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not
be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir."
> >
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Received on Fri, 2 Jun 2006 23:35:20 -0400