Tag Archives: Empiricism

Videos

Five flaws in the thinking of the new atheists

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By UK philosopher Peter S. Williams. (H/T Apologetics 315)

It’s 9 minutes long.

Topics:

  1. Atheists misunderstand the nature of faith.
  2. Atheistic view of epistemology is self-refuting.
  3. Atheistic view of morality is self-contradictory.
  4. Atheistic view of free will is self-contradictory.
  5. Atheists don’t understand theistic arguments.

This is a short presentation of the material presented in this paper.

If you want to hear more from Peter, this debate with an academic postmodern relativist is just awesome.

forumPost:1 AND inner sanctum mysteries
Polemics

What is self-refutation and what are some examples of self-refutation?

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Why, self-refutation is the most wonderful thing in the world, next to irony.

Look at this post from Thinking Matters New Zealand.

First, they define what self-refutation is:

In his Introduction to Logic, Harry Gensler defines a self-refuting statement as “[A] statement that makes negative claims so sweeping that it ends up denying itself.” [1] In other words, it results when an argument or position is undercut by its own criteria  (An example of this would be saying, “I cannot speak a word of English” in English).

Then they have a list of examples of self-refutation. Here are some:

  1. Truth does not exist (Is that a true statement?)
  2. Nothing is absolute (Is that absolutely true?)
  3. I do not exist (You must exist to deny that you exist)
  4. Science is the only way to know (Can you scientifically prove that?)
  5. Only what can be perceived by the five senses exists (Can you prove that by the five senses?)

Go here to read the rest.

I work in the software engineering industry, so we have a lot of nerds running around who believe all kinds of crazy things that are self-refuting. There is a lot of skepticism of the laws of logic and analytical philosophy. A self-refuting statement that I hear a lot is: “Don’t judge me, because it’s wrong to judge other people”. And I just ask them: “Well if it’s wrong to judge other people, then why are you judging me?”. (Actually, I noticed that MandM has a post up about judging right now!)

I wonder if my regular readers have ever heard any self-refuting statements? If you know any more, leave it in the comments.

On another topic, it turns out that the author of this post on self-refutation blogs at Rational Thoughts. I added their blog to the blog roll. Check them out.

Polemics

Is it necessary to use words to preach the gospel?

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The Pugnacious Irishman has some thoughts on it.

Here’s the problem he ran into at church last week:

The message today was a message that contradicts the biblical witness, yet it is a message I hear frequently in the 21st century.  I cannot see Jesus proclaiming the message that was proclaimed today.

[…]Our pastor’s main intention was to press home that our actions need to match our beliefs.

[…]Things started going off the rails, though, when a very obvious second message was proclaimed: the whole “actions-proclamation” dichotomy.

[…]Here’s why I say that: I thought I was just reading into the message, but that was put to rest when I heard the worship leader’s application: “go out and proclaim the gospel at all times.  Use words if necessary.”  He got it loud and clear.  When we got to my car, my wife, who is not an apologetics freak like myself (she’s normal, thank God!), turned to me and said, “I know what his intentions were, but do you get the notion that he was saying that you don’t need to talk to others about Jesus?”

Go here to read Rich’s answer to the problem.

I will surprise no one by stating that it is impossible to preach the gospel without using words, which is why Jesus used them, and why we have people writing letters, preaching sermons and disputing in public throughout the New Testament. In fact, it is literally impossible for someone to be saved without hearing about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The propositional content about these events is required, not optional.

Basically, the message of Christianity is that we are all sinful, and in need of a Lord and Savior so that we can be rightly related to God again. Works are just epiphenomena that occur after you have already been saved, showing that you really are saved. The message of the feminized church, on the other hand, is “do nice things because it makes you feel good, and it makes other people feel good – and that’s what Christianity is about”. So, saying things that make non-Christians feel bad, or that imply that they should be studying to change their beliefs is intolerant or harassment or a hate-crime.

Well, I haven’t been snarky, since, oh… yesterday. So let me tell you exactly why people in the feminized church emphasize actions instead of words, by referring to some of my favorite posts from way back when the blog started. That way, all you new readers can read stuff from back when I actually wrote really good posts on Christian apologetics, instead of really bad posts on politics.

Here are some of my thoughts on why people in church want to do nice things instead of telling others the good news and defending it against attacks. (If you only have time to read one of them read this one)