RE: [asa] The theist challenge

Why is it that when I read such challenges of theism, what first comes to mind is a fish telling another fish that he does not believe in the existence of water. Surely, those who challenge theism, which is clearly not a scientific issue, do so with their supposed knowledge of science in mind. However, of all kinds of knowledge only metaphysics and theology deal with ontological questions. Therefore, the question of being is essentially non-science and thus scientifically based arguments, whether explicitly or implicitly used, are useless.

Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Murray Hogg
Sent: Fri 11/28/2008 10:54 PM
To: ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] The theist challenge

Hi Michael,

You wrote:
> I would cease to be a Christian if they could prove that Jesus' body was
> still in Jerusalem and they found his tomb.

Sorry, but your answer fails to meet the challenge!

One of the real philosophical idiocies of the piece is the requirement of no counterfactuals;

>> What this means is that, for me to account your answer valid, it must
>> consist of something that we could, at least in principle, either
>> agree upon or discover to be true. This rules out logical
>> impossibilities, such as "I would become an atheist if I died and then
>> discovered that there was no consciousness after death." (I've heard
>> that one.) It also rules out counterfactual statements - saying that
>> you would cease to believe in God only if the world was different than
>> it is, for example, that you would become an atheist if there were no
>> such thing as love or goodness. (

To clarify what's being said here:

The challenge is to offer a piece of falsifying evidence X which IF it existed and was discoverable would falsify theism.

BUT if theism is true then X could ONLY exist if the world was different than it is.

THUS if theism is true then X would, by definition, be a counterfactual.

BUT as "no counterfactuals" is a requirement THEN one cannot offer piece of falsifying evidence X which exists only in another possible world,

THEREFORE to meet the challenge, one has to offer an instance of X which actually exists in THIS world - i.e. to show that theism is in principle falsifiable WITHOUT recourse to counterfactuals is, in fact, to falsify theism.

So now not only am I convinced that the author of this piece doesn't understand Christian theism, now I'm pretty sure s/he doesn't grasp the concept of a counterfactual either!

My wonder isn't that the challenge has been live since 2001 and gone unanswered. My wonder is that the person who posited it has gone 7 years without grasping the concepts "theism", "falsifiability" and "counterfactual" which would be basic to any discussion of the issue!

Still, at least it indicates what passes for profundity @ daylightatheism.org!

Bah!

Murray...

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Received on Sat Nov 29 10:34:06 2008