quote:

Originally posted by Krypton Opus and Occrider basically cured me of all the creationism I was taught throughtout my christian indoctrination. Not saying there is not a Creator of our reality, because I actually do believe there is one. But how our reality was created...sure as hell ain't described by creationism. I rather believe creationism puts god in a box because it denies what nature tells us through science, that this reality evolved into the state with which we observe it today.

You're right, that's why fundamentalists and literalists (IE: PROTESTANTS) are in my opinion wrong and misguided completely.

me is puritan

___________________
www.myspace.com/djllamathegreensoap

quote:

Originally posted by Alex You read a synopsis on Amazon, skipped the majority of the videos and commented on a transcript of the debate. Well done.

As much as I might like to, I just really don't have the time to sit through 140 minutes worth of youtube videos on the whim of some guy from the internet. I might be inclined to do so if there was some indication that I might learn something new, but the three videos that I sat there for offered nothing more than the usual, stock-fare apologetics.

If there is something in those videos that you consider to be of especial insight, then tell me where exactly it occurs and I'd be happy to offer some feedback. Until then, I'm not particularly inclined to further listen to the thoughts of a man who believes - apparently without any sense of embarrassment - that his theology is justified by the fact that the scientific method cannot concurrently test the behaviour of every single electron in the universe.

quote:

Gordon Stein was the one who literally wrote the book on how to argue with a theist and win, yet he repeatedly loses ground throughout the debate and eventually offers some really poor closing arguments that make no sense.

I'll be honest with you: in these debates, I never really listen to what the "atheist" has to say. I'm familiar with the atheistic arguments already and the truth / falsity of theistic claims exists quite independently from how competently any given "atheist" is capable of arguing against them on any given day. That Stein may have been terrible in this debate does not detract from the fact that Bahnsen's positions (or at least the ones I exposed myself to) are intellectually indefensible.

You and I would (I'm going to presume) struggle to argue against a particularly skilled geocentrist, but that does not say anything about the objective validity of the view he is espousing.

quote:

Listen to the whole thing before you write it off as not worthy, your post is pure fingers in the ear screaming nananananana just because you were too lazy to listen to the whole thing. There are fantastic arguments offered by both sides and you'd know that if you really were open to an argument.

I am open to a good argument, so here's hoping you post one. If "you can't argue with me until you watch every single minute of every single youtube video I post" is a valid substitute for an argument now, here's hours and hours and hours of my argument. Don't bother replying until you've watched them all.

quote:

If you want to really read theologians/philosophers that have analyzed the evidence and 2 of which weren't even Christians their entire lives I suggest: Augustine of Hippo C.S. Lewis (Not really a theologian actually) Thomas Aquinas (Specifically his Summa Theologica, but if you didn't have the attention span to listen to the entire debate I doubt you'll ever make it through even 3 questions of the library that is the Summa Theologica)

I'm going to hold off commenting about C.S. Lewis until I get around to reading "Mere Christianity" (it's in my Amazon cart with about 20 other books as we speak: I'm just waiting for the Aussie dollar to unfuck itself), but come on: Augustine, Aquinas? Really? You could have at least said Descartes or Kant or Kierkegaard: there's a pantheon of Christian thinkers out there that have long since eclipsed Augustine and Aquinas, and it's a pretty sad indictment on the state of modern theology that those names continue to be dredged up as shining examples of theological insight.

What aspect of their theologies do you feel makes their works worth reading (over, say, the other names I just mentioned)?

quote:

Also I suggest Peter Kreeft for his apologetics, some of his other stuff is a bit wack even for me.

Never heard of him, but his website doesn't fill me with great hope:

quote:

Argument from Design The argument starts with the major premise that where there is design, there must be a designer. The minor premise is the existence of design throughout the universe. The conclusion is that there must be a universal designer.

Impeccable.

Also, from his wikipedia:

quote:

Kreeft has been registered Republican for over thirty years.

Yep, definitely not worth listening to.

quote:

My biggest suggestion would be Thomas Aquinas though, if you like to think and are open to argument as you claim you are, read the Summa, it's one hell of a piece of philosophy.

Again, I'm not about to sit through hundreds of pages of medieval philosophy just to prove a point. His ideas are widely known and have been critically addressed by dozens of generations of philosophers. If there is some aspect of his philosophy that you think is worthy of special consideration then post it here and I'd be happy to address it. "Read this book" is not an argument.

quote:

Originally posted by Alex Also: Bahnsen is a literalist, like most Evangelicals. That's why his base of support is saying that nonsense about the debate. That is also why he would even bother getting into the argument of electrons with an Atheist, it's simply because he literally believes God created the earth in 7 days, 24 hours to a day, 60 minutes to an hour, 60 seconds to a minute in our present measure of time. He also believes that Genesis is 100% true without the slightest chance of any deviation being acceptable. Therefore the argument you decided to use to defend your attacks on a debate you didn't listen to are irrelevant to the rest of the great points made in the debate. While it's too bad Bahnsen is a literalist, he is also a great mind regardless and makes some great great points. Stein makes some amazing points as well but as I said he get's caught in a few traps along the way and eventually loses ground.

1) You seem to reject Bahnsen's literalism, yet you also seem to have no problem throwing your lot in with someone who is (by your own admission) quite troublingly divorced from the reality that you and I inhabit. Am I wrong in asking why you might therefore cite his opinion as being at all reliable in the first place?

2) You keep on mentioning that his general aversion to reality in this debate is punctuated along the way by some "amazing points": please don't keep me in suspense. What are they?

Ok.

First of all, none of the philosophers you mentioned are worth reading OVER Aquinas or Augustine. Modern theology hasn't hit some sort of wall just because it still promotes the readings of these two geniuses.

It's like saying mathematics has hit a wall because we still teach pythagoras or the multiplication tables. Essentials are essentials and I somehow doubt you've read much into either of those two men if you hold such a low opinion of their works.

And your Bahnsen arguments, really? Same as yours against Kreeft.

I'm beginning to think all you're capable of doing is the usual internet nonsense of looking on Wikipedia, seeing one thing you don't like and then lumping it all into one "this isn't worth anything" category simply because you were too ignorant to give it a shot in the first place.

He's a republican, big deal! If you think that is a reason to not listen to someone, I am sorry but I am answering an ignorant fool.

Also, I suspect you've taken Philosophy 101 at most if you are trying to claim that Thomas Aquinas' notions are "widely known" without actually offering a single one of them as evidence of this. You've heard the name, big deal, I've heard of lots of Philosophers whom I know absolutely nothing about.

The difference between you and I is I've kept an open mind and have explored deeply both the atheist points of view and those of theists. You claim you're after theist arguments, yet the ones I offer you (which have been used to pummel atheist mindsets into the ground time and time again, if you'd read Aquinas at all you'd realize this) and you come up with any excuse you can not to find them valid... BEFORE EVEN READING OR LISTENING TO THEM!!!

This is classic fingers in the ears screaming NANANANANANANA stuff, I'd be more than happy to debate these things with you if you do truly have an open mind, but I feel these posts will go back and forth to no where. An actual conversation is the only way to regulate these types of things.

PM me if you are interested.

(PS I've read Descartes and Kant, obviously. Kant offers greater insights into theology than Aquinas, but Aquinas was both an excellent theologian and an even better philosopher, you can't forget that as there weren't many who could be both)

The only things I've read of Kierkegaard's are two discourses on why the idea of a state run secular church is bad. Yes, I must agree with that notion

C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity is a must read as it negates the atheist morality arguments almost in their entirety, and it's ironic given how a big portion of his life was spent being a staunch atheist.

Other names to consider are other early church fathers apart from Augustine like Basil the Great, Ambrose and Dionysius.

For more recent theology stuff Scott Hahn and Paul Tillich are both pretty good.

And by the way, the main reason I disagree with Bahnsen isn't something that's found in that debate. He is a baptist and I am a Roman Catholic, the differences aren't with how he argued in the debate but with what he believes in in accordance to his denomination.

I consider myself fairly centrist on most issues, Catholics are surprisingly centrist. I do not believe in creationism or in Sola Scriptura or any of those literalist ideas, that's why I've been able to take the approach I have.

Peter Kreeft may seem like a cookie cutter right winger to you, devoid of any wisdom whatsoever, but in recent years he has shifted from his fundamentalist views and has become a Roman Catholic. Obviously I disagree with many of his ideas, but others are extremely sound and he is very witty which adds some humor to the often too serious debate.

Stolen from Renegade, from Kreeft's website:

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/design.htm

Let's see if we can break this down a bit:

quote:

Argument from Design The argument starts with the major premise that where there is design, there must be a designer.

Okay. Not exactly sure how that premise should be accepted in the first place, given the fact that evidence must support the existence of the designer and all His designs created being deliberately made in one frame or another, not to mention the fact that to date the ID project of finding a design that is directly attributed to a designer rather than a natural process has been a terrific failure, but okay.

quote:

The minor premise is the existence of design throughout the universe.

This kind of leads me to question the objectivity of the term, "design", but okay.

quote:

The conclusion is that there must be a universal designer. Why must we believe the major premise, that all design implies a designer? Because everyone admits this principle in practice. For instance, suppose you came upon a deserted island and found "S.O.S." written in the sand on the beach. You would not think the wind or the waves had written it by mere chance but that someone had been there, someone intelligent enough to design and write the message. If you found a stone hut on the island with windows, doors, and a fireplace, you would not think a hurricane had piled up the stones that way by chance. You immediately infer a designer when you see design.

Yeah, right. The very same reason why I think I as a male have nipples.

Or why apes have tailbones.

Or why I have an appendix.

Or all that junk DNA in our bodies that serve no purpose whatsoever.

etc. etc.

quote:

When the first moon rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, two U.S. scientists stood watching it, side by side. One was a believer, the other an unbeliever. The believer said, "Isn't it wonderful that our rocket is going to hit the moon by chance?" The unbeliever objected, "What do you mean, chance? We put millions of manhours of design into that rocket." "Oh," said the believer, "you don't think chance is a good explanation for the rocket? Then why do you think it's a good explanation for the universe? There's much more design in a universe than in a rocket. We can design a rocket, but we couldn't design a whole universe. I wonder who can?" Later that day the two were strolling down a street and passed an antique store. The atheist admired a picture in the window and asked, "I wonder who painted that picture?" "No one," joked the believer; "it just happened by chance."

Wow. Great false analogy. Again the first question comes to mind about the objectivity of the word "design", especially when we are discussing the universe. In many respects, the universe represents the epitome of chaos, but one man's chaos is another man's "design", and supposedly done deliberately so, I guess (without any supporting evidence to demonstrate, of course).

It also begs the question, how do I spot design, especially when I think it's deliberately made by a supposed "designer"? For example, how can I tell a snowflake designed in a laboratory from one that just dropped out of the sky?

quote:

Is it possible that design happens by chance without a designer? There is perhaps one chance in a trillion that "S.O.S." could be written in the sand by the wind.

I've seen someone accidentally write "ssv" on the beach with their butt as they tried to get their big ass up off the sand. That just so happened to be the initials of a long-lost friend of mine. I guess I should just accept that as a message from God, not a mere coincidence then too.

I also saw the word "boob" in the clouds one time too. I didn't realize just how horny God was. Or maybe it was me......

quote:

But who would use a one-in-a-trillion explanation? Someone once said that if you sat a million monkeys at a million typewriters for a million years, one of them would eventually type out all of Hamlet by chance. But when we find the text of Hamlet, we don't wonder whether it came from chance and monkeys. Why then does the atheist use that incredibly improbable explanation for the universe?

I can't specifically speak for atheists, but how did he come to the conclusion that what they believe in is somehow improbable? And how could that be somehow less probable than God creating the universe, especially when there is no tested, retested, verifiable, and falsifiable evidence to conclude Godidit?

I must also ask the question why IDers do not apply their irreducibly complex tests to their given Designer. It is an interesting question, one that I have not been given a rationale answer for - God is no doubt incredibly complex, so complex that we simply cannot understand Him fully. We're talking about an omniscent and omnipotent being here, which begs the thought of immense complexity.

If we are to go along this thought process like Kreeft and the IDers that a complex design of the universe demonstrates an all-powerful Designer, that begs the question that the Designer Himself must have been designed by some other being too, does it not? IOW, who made the Designer? Should we not be asking that question as well, or do we simply turn off the path of "logical" thinking by IDers to not include that? If so, why?

quote:

There is one especially strong version of the argument from design that hits close to home because it's about the design of the very thing we use to think about design: our brains. The human brain is the most complex piece of design in the known universe. In many ways it is like a computer. Now just suppose there were a computer that was programmed only by chance. For instance, suppose you were in a plane and the public-address system announced that there was no pilot, but the plane was being flown by a computer that had been programmed by a random fall of hailstones on its keyboard or by a baseball player in spiked shoes dancing on computer cards. How much confidence would you have in that plane? But if our brain computer has no cosmic intelligence behind the heredity and environment that program it, why should we trust it when it tells us about anything, even about the brain?

These false analogies are becoming sillier by the moment. My previous statements apply to this as well. How many times can he state the Blind Watchmaker fallacy?

quote:

Another specially strong aspect of the design argument is the so-called anthropic principle, according to which the universe seems to have been specially designed from the beginning for human life to evolve. If the temperature of the primal fireball that resulted from the Big Bang some fifteen to twenty billion years ago, which was the beginning of our universe, had been a trillionth of a degree colder or hotter, the carbon molecule that is the foundation of all organic life could never have developed. The number of possible universes is trillions of trillions; only one of them could support human life: this one. Sounds suspiciously like a plot. If the cosmic rays had bombarded the primordial slime at a slightly different angle or time or intensity, the hemoglobin molecule, necessary for all warm-blooded animals, could never have evolved. The chance of this molecule's evolving is something like one in a trillion trillion. Add together each of the chances and you have something far more unbelievable than a million monkeys writing Hamlet.

Apparently, one more time......

Oh, about that anthropic principle bullshit:

http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/The..._proving_design

quote:

There are relatively few atheists among neurologists and brain surgeons and among astrophysicists, but many among psychologists, sociologists, and historians. The reason seems obvious: the first study divine design, the second study human undesign.

Good fucking grief.

Out of curiousity, where is his support for such a claim?

quote:

But doesn't evolution explain everything without a divine Designer? Just the opposite; evolution is a beautiful example of design, a great clue to God. There is very good scientific evidence for the evolving, ordered appearance of species, from simple to complex. But there is no scientific proof of natural selection as the mechanism of evolution,

Umm, really?

It's strange how he can separate "evolution" from natural selection, given the fact that evolution is defined specifically by the two processes of:

1. Random mutation
2. NATURAL SELECTION

But oh well. I'll give him points for obfuscation.

And I'm curious as to how he comes to the conclusion that there's no "proof" in NS? Do you also believe this Alex? If so, how does one conceptualize evolution in the first place, given it's term is defined by natural selection? Let me know if you would like evidence of NS as well.

quote:

Natural selection "explains" the emergence of higher forms without intelligent design by the survival-of-the-fittest principle. But this is sheer theory. There is no evidence that abstract, theoretical thinking or altruistic love make it easier for man to survive. How did they evolve then?

*blink*

Jesus. You serious, buddy? First off, if you do not believe NS demonstrates the emergence of higher forms, then I would like to see your evidence that ID does exactly that. To date, I have yet to see any evidence of this, which is exactly why ID has been shown to be terribly invalid.

Second, I won't get into the "just a theory" bullshit since that's been explained ad nauseum in this thread and elsewhere, but good grief is this guy really that dense to try and throw that out there?

Lastly, where the hell did the "abstract, theoretical thinking or altruistic love" bullshit analogy come from? And how on earth does that relate in any way or form to NS?

quote:

Furthermore, could the design that obviously now exists in man and in the human brain come from something with less or no design? Such an explanation violates the principle of causality, which states that you can't get more in the effect than you had in the cause. If there is intelligence in the effect (man), there must be intelligence in the cause. But a universe ruled by blind chance has no intelligence. Therefore there must be a cause for human intelligence that transcends the universe: a mind behind the physical universe.

Who ever said the universe was ruled by "blind chance"? I've never heard of the laws of physics and astrophysics being simplified down
to this level of absurdity. Anyone?

Well, then again, if we take into Quantum Theory. But I doubt Kreeft has even heard of that, so nevermind.

quote:

(Most great scientists have believed in such a mind, by the way, even those who did not accept any revealed religion.

Evidence to support this assertion? Silly me, of course not.

And those scientists he speaks of, are they biologists? Paleontologists? Cosmologists? Astronomers? Hmmm......

quote:

How much does this argument prove? Not all that the Christian means by God, of course—no argument can do that. But it proves a pretty thick slice of God: some designing intelligence great enough to account for all the design in the universe and the human mind. If that's not God, what is it? Steven Spielberg?

Natural processes, as best as we currently know of them and are currently supported by evidence. Have you given any positive, tested, retested, verifiable, and falsifiable evidence for an Intelligent Designer creating an Intelligent Design? Still waiting.......

Got to admit, haven't been in this loop for a while, but I'm always interested in another IDer filling in those darn gaps for God.

More on design requiring a designer:

http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Des...ires_a_designer


Finally, some more interesting info. on Kreeft. I remember reading his garbage when I read Strobel a long time ago, so it wasn't hard to find a few refutations:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mod...ained/obj1.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/mod...in/failing.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/mod...nd/strobel.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/mod...y/skeprayr.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/mod...stian.html#hell

Disclaimer: I do not consider myself an atheist, but those arguing for a deity on a scientific basis really do themselves a sincere disservice, and IMO completely disregard what their religion and their concept of faith is truly all about. As it would seem, Kreeft seems to fit this category well.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Out of curiousity, where is his support for such a claim?

Yeah, that's a curious one.

In 2006, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who happens to actually be a (rather exceptional) astrophysicist, commented:

quote:

I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God, I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don’t.

I guess when you run out of logical fallacies, you can always fall back on the oldest trick in the book: just plain lying.

Can people arguing in favor of Atheism only ever argue about evolution?

Do you realize that the vast majority of Christianity are not creationists?

And yes, I can support that claim.

Catholics do not believe in Creationism, or intelligent design, in fact most Catholics lean towards Evolution more and more these days, but that does not mean that something could not have put the pattern in motion in the first place.

Misteropus1 your arguments make so little sense and not only did you criticize Kreeft for not referencing some of his claims, you offered a bunch of statements that I'm sure are at the very least exaggerated and referenced absolutely nothing. So please

And if you're still trying to apply the scientific method to figuring out if God exists, then I'm sorry, this will lead absolutely no where fast.

Even Mr. Atheist himself, Gordon Stein, agreed that you cannot apply the scientific method, or "tried and tested" methods to proving the existence of God. It is a question of something that is immaterial and there is obviously no way of testing such a thing with the scientific method. The question is of Philosophy more than it is Science, Atheists just can't seem to wrap their heads around that fact because they consider anything unproven by Science to simply be false or at the very least negotiable. Funny how things like Morality and the Laws of Nature (not natural science, but the laws of human nature) cannot be explained by Science yet are widely accepted regardless of this fact.

Also:

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/050811_scientists_god.html



We can post statistics back and forth but neither of us will be able to prove that the vast majority of scientists do or do not believe in a god unless we were to conduct a fair and balanced study of this ourselves. So lets not even go there because that's one hell of a silly hole to fall into in this whole debate.

Last edited by Alex on Nov-28-2008 at 23:26

quote:

Originally posted by Alex Can people arguing in favor of Atheism only ever argue about evolution?

Was that what I was doing? Can you point out specifically that anything I said demonstrates this?

quote:

Do you realize that the vast majority of Christianity are not creationists? And yes, I can support that claim.

No need, I completely agree with you. Unfortunately, it would appear that your guy, Kreeft, does not agree with either one of us.

quote:

Catholics do not believe in Creationism, or intelligent design, in fact most Catholics lean towards Evolution more and more these days, but that does not mean that something could not have put the pattern in motion in the first place.

That's all well and good, but are you able to demonstrate that possibility with evidence? Otherwise, it's perfectly okay for you to say, "I don't know". Scientists and researchers, especially in evolutionary biology, say it all the time (then of course they investigate to find out, and on and on).

quote:

Misteropus1 your arguments make so little sense and not only did you criticize Kreeft for not referencing some of his claims, you offered a bunch of statements that I'm sure are at the very least exaggerated and referenced absolutely nothing. So please

Great. Please point out which ones you claim to believe I am exaggerating. If you're interested in references, I did just happen to give you some in my post.

If that doesn't suffice, I suggest you scan through this thread, because I gave plenty of references in here as well.

Otherwise, if you have something specific that you want me to reference, you just need to ask.

quote:

And if you're still trying to apply the scientific method to figuring out if God exists, then I'm sorry, this will lead absolutely no where fast.

I'm trying to figure out where in my post, or in any of my posts that would lead you to believe this is something I am trying to do. In fact, time and again I have specifically mentioned that matters of science have no place into matters of religious faith, and vice versa.

You're certainly not arguing with me on that point.

quote:

Even Mr. Atheist himself, Gordon Stein, agreed that you cannot apply the scientific method, or "tried and tested" methods to proving the existence of God. It is a question of something that is immaterial and there is obviously no way of testing such a thing with the scientific method.

Maybe I missed something - am I to understand that you think I or any other evolutionary biologist are trying to do this? If so, what led you to that conclusion based on anything I said? I am merely refuting Kreeft's silly arguments for ID, nothing more. How does that lead you to conclude I am somehow arguing for science to find God?

And I guess more importantly, why do you think science even gives a shit about God?

quote:

The question is of Philosophy more than it is Science,

Well then you stepped out of my area, so I don't have too much of an opinion on that.

quote:

Atheists just can't seem to wrap their heads around that fact because they consider anything unproven by Science to simply be false or at the very least negotiable. Funny how things like Morality and the Laws of Nature (not natural science, but the laws of human nature) cannot be explained by Science yet are widely accepted regardless of this fact.

Can you give some examples, just out of curiousity?

quote:

Also: http://www.livescience.com/strangen...ntists_god.html

I guess I'm not as shocked about this as you think I should be. I know a healthy handful of researchers throughout my years who go to church and/or have a spiritual side to them. Conversely, I know a number who do not. I guess my question is, so what? If an evolutionary biologist holds separate his beliefs in God or a spiritual deity as a matter of faith from his beliefs in the tested, verifiable, and falsifiable natural world, is that a bad thing or a shocking notion? As stated previously, matters of faith and science do not and should not mingle, so why should I be surprised that some scientists are able to do just that and hold these two items separate?

And perhaps more to the point, why the hell should I care what they believe in or not provided that they do their jobs and contribute to helping explain the natural world as we know it to the best of their abilities?

quote:

We can post statistics back and forth but neither of us will be able to prove that the vast majority of scientists do or do not believe in a god unless we were to conduct a fair and balanced study of this ourselves. So lets not even go there because that's one hell of a silly hole to fall into in this whole debate.

Again I'm not sure that was where I was going with anything remotely similar to that particular line of debate. As stated earlier, I was merely refuting Kreeft's argument for ID. If you want specifics on any of my arguments against him, please tell me and I'll address them accordingly.

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...

Sorry Misteropus1 not all my comments were directed towards you, I should have been more specific. Some of my questions and statements were a "in general" sort of thing and weren't directed at you.

I'll have a look again at your post tomorrow as I have to go to bed sadly, doing stuff on Saturdays apart from sleeping sucks

Sorry for the late reply. I had a thing.

quote:

Originally posted by Alex Ok. First of all, none of the philosophers you mentioned are worth reading OVER Aquinas or Augustine. Modern theology hasn't hit some sort of wall just because it still promotes the readings of these two geniuses.

I'm not particularly inclined to defend the philosophy of Descartes or Kierkegaard against attacks from any direction, but come on: are you really going to pretend that the philosophy of Kant - and the almost prescient insight he had into a wide range of disciplines - doesn't at all eclipse the rather constrained (both in context and in scope) philosophy offered by Aquinas or Augustine? The latter two had influences on the trajectory of theological thought, sure, but that about covers it.

And - like I said - this speaks more to the poverty of theology than it does to the purported "genius" of these two thinkers. In their particular time and place, they were undoubtedly quite shrewd thinkers: in the field of medical science, we could say the same of Hippocrates and Pasteur. Still, medical science has progressed since their time: much of what they believed was false. Theology surely stands alone in promoting the timeless truth of beliefs held by 4th and 13th century thinkers.

quote:

It's like saying mathematics has hit a wall because we still teach pythagoras or the multiplication tables.

Although mathematics has progressed a great deal since that time, Pythagorean geometry and multiplication tables still have a certain objective, demonstrable truth supporting them. The same cannot be said for the theological claims of any time or place.

quote:

Essentials are essentials and I somehow doubt you've read much into either of those two men if you hold such a low opinion of their works.

I willingly admit that I've never read anything by them, but I have certainly read plenty of them. Still, even that is completely beside the point: if you feel that any of their work is worthy of special consideration then please post it here and I will be happy to respond. "Read this book" is - like I have already said - not a valid substitution for an argument.

quote:

I'm beginning to think all you're capable of doing is the usual internet nonsense of looking on Wikipedia, seeing one thing you don't like and then lumping it all into one "this isn't worth anything" category simply because you were too ignorant to give it a shot in the first place.

The onus really isn't upon me to research the claims that you've made. If the burden of proof lay - as a universal maxim - with the skeptical party then it would be practically impossible to disprove any claim. Give me some special insight posited by Kreeft (or Aquinas, or Augustine, or any of the other names you've dropped) and I will happily give them the special consideration that you've afforded them. Until then, I'm treating all your argument as one big "Courtier's Reply".

quote:

He's a republican, big deal! If you think that is a reason to not listen to someone, I am sorry but I am answering an ignorant fool.

I was only joking... kinda...

quote:

Also, I suspect you've taken Philosophy 101 at most if you are trying to claim that Thomas Aquinas' notions are "widely known" without actually offering a single one of them as evidence of this.

You'll be happy to know that I've never taken a philosophy class in my life, but I'm not really sure what the relevence of that is. Off the top of my head I'm familiar with Aquinas' notion of the "unmoved mover" (borrowed from Aristotle) or the more Platonic notion of there being a necessary source of perfection in the universe - both of which I'd be happy to address - but I couldn't address them any better than, say, Bertrand Russell (or any number of great thinkers) already have. Maybe I'd recommend that you should take a first year philosophy class so that you might become better exposed to these sorts of critical arguments that have existed for hundreds of years?

quote:

You've heard the name, big deal, I've heard of lots of Philosophers whom I know absolutely nothing about.

Oh, I don't doubt that for a second.

quote:

The difference between you and I is I've kept an open mind and have explored deeply both the atheist points of view and those of theists.

If you'd read my goodreads page you'd note that I've read two Christian apologetic books (Best Christian Writing of 2000 (which I picked up for 50c) and Twighlight of Atheism) in the past three months. What is the last atheist literature that you've read?

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You claim you're after theist arguments, yet the ones I offer you (which have been used to pummel atheist mindsets into the ground time and time again, if you'd read Aquinas at all you'd realize this)

haha... I, um...

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and you come up with any excuse you can not to find them valid... BEFORE EVEN READING OR LISTENING TO THEM!!!

I don't need an excuse. In any serious debate (which apparently precludes this one) it is not my responsibility to go to any great lengths to find out what your arguments are: you should be presenting them to me. If you are privy to arguments that "pummel atheist mindsets into the ground time and time again", this shouldn't really be a problem, should it?

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This is classic fingers in the ears screaming NANANANANANANA stuff, I'd be more than happy to debate these things with you if you do truly have an open mind, but I feel these posts will go back and forth to no where. An actual conversation is the only way to regulate these types of things.

What's wrong with this format?

You've given me the same answers again, no surprise there. You also have not answered the only question I really wanted answered and that is if you wanted to discuss this further away from the boards where you can sound overly authoritative and conclusive given it takes a certain amount of time for the other person to read everything and determine what was BS and what wasn't.