Sorry—I still haven’t figured out why standard html doesn’t work here, or how to do blockquotes…
“Well, UU is definitely on the ‘accommodationist’ side,”
Generally, yes
-”which means that, when asked ‘Are there supernatural things?‘, it answers ‘Shut up, debate is intolerance’.”
I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean that. I fall closer to the accommodationist side, and I gladly answer, “no, probably not” to that question.
-”Okay, chewing pellets could plausibly be lumped in with chewing one’s cud, though I am Not Happy about things becoming “imagery” the second they’re literally false.”
I’m not a big fan of Christian apologetics—especially of the sort that like to claim that there are no errors in the Bible, but to hold that “rabbits chew their cud” is an example of a falsehood in the Bible requires you assume that the phrase so translated literally means rumination of partially digested material in exactly the way that ruminant species do. This is a terrible assumption, since the language belonged to people who did not understand rumination: why would they have a term term in their vocabulary that literally describes a process they didn’t understand?
There are many examples of real errors in the Bible… it just looks dumb to cite something as an error based solely on an assumption that ancient languages will somehow embed modern classification systems.
-”But science can and does prove that such agents just don’t happen.”
To fix your argument: science proves that such agents don’t arise under ordinary physical law.
Any number of elements of rational thought make the existence of such an agent improbable, but that doesn’t make it specifically anti-scientific to believe in such an agent.
-”requires rejecting the claim ‘Induction works’,”
Nonsense—it merely requires asserting that induction can fail outside the boundaries for which it should apply (in the case of science, outside the boundaries of natural law).
Sorry—I still haven’t figured out why standard html doesn’t work here, or how to do blockquotes...
When you write a comment, at the bottom right of the text box there is a “Help” button that tells you how to to blockquotes, italics, bold, links, and bullet points.
-”But science can and does prove that such agents just don’t happen.” To fix your argument: science proves that such agents don’t arise under ordinary physical law. Any number of elements of rational thought make the existence of such an agent improbable, but that doesn’t make it specifically anti-scientific to believe in such an agent.
If you step outside ordinary physical law, you lose your firm objective ground to stand on. What’s the point of considering the question when the answer is “You can’t disprove me because God is magical and can do anything.” ? Unless there’s firm evidence towards those events happening (which consistently have been disproven historically), then why waste your time?
Personally, it isn’t something I waste my time on… as I mentioned earlier—it is still a mistake, in terms of strict probability, to believe that there have been miracles from God. It just isn’t a specifically anti-scientific mistake. The act of making it is not evidence that a person is unscientific—merely that they are not reasoning well.
Sorry—I still haven’t figured out why standard html doesn’t work here, or how to do blockquotes…
“Well, UU is definitely on the ‘accommodationist’ side,” Generally, yes
-”which means that, when asked ‘Are there supernatural things?‘, it answers ‘Shut up, debate is intolerance’.” I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean that. I fall closer to the accommodationist side, and I gladly answer, “no, probably not” to that question.
-”Okay, chewing pellets could plausibly be lumped in with chewing one’s cud, though I am Not Happy about things becoming “imagery” the second they’re literally false.” I’m not a big fan of Christian apologetics—especially of the sort that like to claim that there are no errors in the Bible, but to hold that “rabbits chew their cud” is an example of a falsehood in the Bible requires you assume that the phrase so translated literally means rumination of partially digested material in exactly the way that ruminant species do. This is a terrible assumption, since the language belonged to people who did not understand rumination: why would they have a term term in their vocabulary that literally describes a process they didn’t understand?
There are many examples of real errors in the Bible… it just looks dumb to cite something as an error based solely on an assumption that ancient languages will somehow embed modern classification systems.
-”But science can and does prove that such agents just don’t happen.” To fix your argument: science proves that such agents don’t arise under ordinary physical law. Any number of elements of rational thought make the existence of such an agent improbable, but that doesn’t make it specifically anti-scientific to believe in such an agent.
-”requires rejecting the claim ‘Induction works’,” Nonsense—it merely requires asserting that induction can fail outside the boundaries for which it should apply (in the case of science, outside the boundaries of natural law).
When you write a comment, at the bottom right of the text box there is a “Help” button that tells you how to to blockquotes, italics, bold, links, and bullet points.
Thank you.
If you step outside ordinary physical law, you lose your firm objective ground to stand on. What’s the point of considering the question when the answer is “You can’t disprove me because God is magical and can do anything.” ? Unless there’s firm evidence towards those events happening (which consistently have been disproven historically), then why waste your time?
Personally, it isn’t something I waste my time on… as I mentioned earlier—it is still a mistake, in terms of strict probability, to believe that there have been miracles from God. It just isn’t a specifically anti-scientific mistake. The act of making it is not evidence that a person is unscientific—merely that they are not reasoning well.