Comment on Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science by Sean Pitman.
An illogical position may be very reasonable.
The primary difference between logic and reason is that reason can work outside of a previously established set of rules for problem solving – such as skipping steps or working backward to find a solution, whereas logic “follows clearly defined rules and tests for critical thinking” (Link). This means that what is “reasonable” must makes sense or appeal to someone other than one’s own self if one wishes to be viewed as reasonable outside of one’s own mind. In order to achieve this desired “reasonableness” one must offer what at least appear to be good reasons why various steps that are usually followed can be skipped in finding the solution to a particular problem – and the solution itself must prove to be correct. Therefore, either way, what might seem reasonable or logical to you might also be wrong – i.e., effectively falsified by the presentation of additional evidence or other even more “reasonable” arguments. Yet, you refuse to admit the possibility of error because your faith in the truth of various empirical claims cannot be questioned or challenged by reason or evidence or any other means of potential falsification beyond what you feel with your “gestalt” sensations is true, or not true. That means that your position is neither reasonable nor logical.
Knowing why one arrives at ones position I think is indicative of such insight. I do not think you have insight into what you are saying when you claim your “..If I ever…” because it is statement of fundamentalism. A fundamentalism you seem incapable of recognizing or acknowledging.
So, I’m a “fundamentalist” and you’re not? Really? The way you describe it, your own faith is what is untouchable, even in theory, because it is subjectively derived through “gestalt” sensations and therefore cannot be challenged at all by any kind of evidence or argument. Clearly then, you’re the fundamentalist who is actually presenting fundamentalist arguments – such as fideistic definitions of faith in various empirical claims of your chosen Scriptures. This is exactly the same type of faith subscribed to by my fundamentalist friends within various religious organizations.
On the other hand, I’m the one saying that the empirical claims of one’s religion require some kind of empirical support before faith in such claims becomes anything more useful than wishful thinking. That’s not usually described as a “fundamentalist” argument…
It particularly lacks insight in that you have subsequently intimated that you would not become an atheist which is where I think logic and reason must take you if you accept empiricism as the basis for all thought and belief.
Again, there are a lot of theists who are not Christian. Are you actually trying to say that all non-Christian theists are illogical and irrational in their beliefs? I would hope not – as there are very good logical and rational reasons for believing in a God of some kind – even if Christianity is rejected.
Instead you seem to indicate you would retain what you think is intrinsic in man the essential Christian moral and ethical position of the royal law of love.
That’s right.
You would do this while rejecting 6000 year chronology.
Given the truth of neo-Darwinism, yes.
I can only commend you on making at least in prospect a very rational decision.
Thank you… but there really is no choice given the internal origin of ethical truths. The problem is that Christianity goes beyond ethical claims alone. Lots of different faiths accept the ethics of Christianity. That doesn’t make the followers of these various faiths Christians.
My only remaining concern is that you still maintain that for you Christian belief can only ever really be true if you maintain fundamentalisms insistence that a literal reading of Genesis is foundational to all of Christianity. This is patently untrue historically and experientially. Just move on from that and I think we are in violent agreement if such a thing should be entertained by a pacifist.
Again, Christianity goes beyond ethics alone. Christianity involves empirical claims as well as ethical claims – as you yourself believe.
So, yet again, I ask you for the basis of your very selective beliefs in various empirical claims of Christianity? You are asking me to reject various empirical claims of the Bible that are not at all ambiguous, while, at the same time, telling me that your faith lets you know that other empirical claims of the Bible that are even more fantastic, sometimes from the very same authors, are actually true? Your “gestalt” tells you these things? Really? – and your fideistic faith in empirical claims like the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and a real place called “Heaven” isn’t “fundamentalistic”? – while mine is?
I’m sorry, but that’s not logical or rational. That’s inconsistent wishful thinking is what it is – unless you can explain how I’m wrong here? I don’t think you’ll address this question because you know I’m right. You just don’t want to talk about why you believe certain empirical claims of the Bible while you reject many other less fantastic claims… which is fine. Just don’t think to claim that you’re not a standard fideistic fundamentalist – because you most certainly are when it comes to the reasons why you believe like you do.
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science
Again, the basic ability to recognize love and exhibit love does not “have to be taught” by parents. A child will also naturally feel guilty for doing harm to another – without the need to be taught about feeling guilty for doing wrong. On the other hand, if you were correct, those who did not have good parents, or had no parents at all, would have an perfect excuse before God for why they didn’t choose to act lovingly toward their neighbors. They would feel no guilt or remorse for anything wrong that they did. After all, according to your argument, no one is born with a conscience – or an inherent knowledge of any kind of moral right or wrong to any degree. You claim that the conscience does not exist at all before one is taught, by one’s parents. You claim that there is no way to know right from wrong unless one is taught by some outside source of information. However, in reality, no one has such an excuse because all are in fact born with an internally-derived conscience regardless of the goodness or training, or lack thereof, of one’s parents.
It is a studied fact that a very young child naturally knows what is right regarding the Royal Law of Love on at least a very basic level… and is naturally attracted to it. This knowledge is hardwired – by God. That is why, yet again, Paul described this ability among the heathen as “natural” – not something that they had to learn from their parents, but understood by having the Law written on their hearts by God (Romans 2:13-15). This Biblical claim is actually backed up by modern research that shows that very young babies do in fact have an innate sense of right and wrong (Link).
And, Ellen White also speaks of children having a God-given conscience that must be considered in their training. They are not like animals that are born without a conscience:
The training of children must be conducted on a different principle from that which governs the training of irrational animals. The brute has only to be accustomed to submit to its master; but the child must be taught to control himself. The will must be trained to obey the dictates of reason and conscience. – Ellen White, January 10, 1882
So, here we have a child being born with inherent God-given gifts of both reason and conscience. Such gifts are created as internally-derived gifts by God. Call it “hocus pocus” of you want, but God is in fact a Divine creator who is well able to create such gifts with no less ability than He is able to create the universe or the complexities of the living human body. Therefore, it is not the parents who create the original ability for “enmity” against evil within their children. Parents do not get the credit for this basic ability to judge right from wrong. After all, it is God who said that He is the one who would create this enmity against sin within the human race (Genesis 3:15). He did not leave this up to us to create within our children. It is God and only God who creates the conscience in each one of us. Our responsibility toward our children is to train them on how to apply, maintain, grow, and guard their God-given gifts of reason and conscience. We nurture the plant that God has made, so to speak, but we did not create the original seed from which the plant was made able to grow.
Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science
And we see that God “puts” grace and enmity between Satan and the children of Adam. It is not something naturally passed on from Adam to his offspring.
Of course it is God who puts the enmity between us and Satan. It is a miraculous act on the part of God. However, the fact remains that God has given us to recognize and understand the “beauty of Holiness”, to know good from evil, from birth. Now, it is also true that all children are born with a fallen nature. However, this does not negate the fact that God has also given them to be born with an inherent God-given knowledge of right and wrong.
Believing the Disproven – An Adventure in Science
“Fundamentalism”
One more thing Paul. As far as one of your favorite pejorative charges of “fundamentalist” is concerned, not everyone who believes in the fundamental claims of a group or organization is “fundamentalistic” when it comes to why one believes this or that or in the arguments used to support and promote one’s position to others. In other words, there is a difference between what one believes and why one believes it.
For example, the “reasons” for your faith are identical to the reasons that my fundamentalist friends of various religions have for their faiths. You all appeal to an internal feeling or “gestalt” type of sensation as the basis of your faith. That’s very different from the reasons I give for why I believe the way I do – i.e., based on “the weight of evidence” that is empirical, testable, and potentially falsifiable.
To illustrate further, you believe in the fundamental claims of neo-Darwinism. Does that make you a “Darwinian fundamentalist”? Not in and of itself – at least not with regard to why you believe like you do or the arguments you might use to defend your Darwinian position. It all depends upon the reasons why you believe that the main claims of this or that group are most likely correct. Are your beliefs based on reasonable and/or logical arguments? Are they based on what you perceive to be the weight of empirical evidence? Are your beliefs at least potentially falsifiable? If so, you’re really not “fundamentalistic” in why you believe like you do or the way you try to promote your position.
The same can be true for the Christian and even for the Adventist…
Recent Comments by Sean Pitman
Science and Methodological Naturalism
Very interesting passage. After all, if scientists are honest with themselves, scientific methodologies are well-able to detect the existence of intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. It’s just the personal philosophy of scientists that makes them put living things and the origin of the fine-tuned universe “out of bounds” when it comes to the detection of intelligent design. This conclusion simply isn’t dictated by science itself, but by a philosophical position, a type of religion actually, that strives to block the Divine Foot from getting into the door…
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Why is it that creationists are afraid to acknowledge the validity of Darwinism in these settings? I don’t see that these threaten a belief in God in any way whatsoever.
The threat is when you see no limitations to natural mindless mechanisms – where you attribute everything to the creative power of nature instead of to the God of nature.
God has created natural laws that can do some pretty amazing things. However, these natural laws are not infinite in creative potential. Their abilities are finite while only God is truly infinite.
The detection of these limitations allows us to recognize the need for the input of higher-level intelligence and creative power that goes well beyond what nature alone can achieve. It is here that the Signature of God is detectable.
For those who only hold a naturalistic view of the universe, everything is attributed to the mindless laws of nature… so that the Signature of God is obscured. Nothing is left that tells them, “Only God or some God-like intelligent mind could have done this.”
That’s the problem when you do not recognize any specific limitations to the tools that God has created – when you do not recognize the limits of nature and what natural laws can achieve all by themselves.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Bill Sorensen:
Since the fall of Adam, Sean, all babies are born in sin and they are sinners. God created them. Even if it was by way of cooperation of natural law as human beings also participated in the creation process.
God did not create the broken condition of any human baby – neither the physical or moral brokenness of any human being. God is responsible for every good thing, to include the spark or breath of life within each one of us. However, He did not and does not create those things within us that are broken or bad.
“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'” Matthew 13:27-28
Of course, all humans are indeed born broken and are in a natural state of rebellion against God. However, God is not the one who created this condition nor is God responsible for any baby being born with any kind of defect in character, personality, moral tendency, or physical or genetic abnormality. God did not create anyone with such brokenness. Such were the natural result of rebellion against God and heading the temptations of the “enemy”… the natural result of a separation from God with the inevitable decay in physical, mental, and moral strength.
Of course, the ones who are born broken are not responsible for their broken condition either. However, all of us are morally responsible for choosing to reject the gift of Divine Grace once it is appreciated… and for choosing to go against what we all have been given to know, internally, of moral truth. In other words, we are responsible for rebelling against the Royal Law written on the hearts of all mankind.
This is because God has maintained in us the power to be truly free moral agents in that we maintain the Power to choose, as a gift of God (Genesis 3:15). We can choose to accept or reject the call of the Royal Law, as the Holy Spirit speaks to all of our hearts…
Remember the statement by Mrs. White that God is in no wise responsible for sin in anyone at any time. God is working to fix our broken condition. He did not and does not create our broken condition. Just as He does not cause Babies to be born with painful and lethal genetic defects, such as those that result in childhood leukemia, He does not cause Babies to be born with defects of moral character either. God is only directly responsible for the good, never the evil, of this life.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:
Again, your all-or-nothing approach to the claims of scientists isn’t very scientific. Even the best and most famous of scientists has had numerous hair-brained ideas that were completely off base. This fact does not undermine the good discoveries and inventions that were produced.
Scientific credibility isn’t based on the person making the argument, but upon the merits of the argument itself – the ability of the hypothesis to gain predictive value when tested. That’s it.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Don’t be so obtuse here. We’re not talking about publishing just anything in mainstream journals. I’ve published several articles myself. We’re talking about publishing the conclusion that intelligent design was clearly involved with the origin of various artifactual features of living things on this planet. Try getting a paper that mentions such a conclusion published…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
